Only in games where death is cheap. So, not this one.

It's noticeably difficult to kill a PC in this game, but it is possible. That being said, I always tell my groups (no matter the game or genre) "I don't pull punches in my games. If you do something dumb, you get what you get. If the dice say your character is dead, then your character is D E A D. Deus Ex Not A Chance." It may seem a bit harsh, especially for newer players who expect a little bit of leeway from GM's, but I have found that it also cuts down on people trying to pull a Leeroy Jenkins because they think its funny and/or the GM will let them get away with it.

Though, to be fair, I have fudged one or two dice rolls because one or two of my players did something incredibly awesome and I felt was deserving of a little break...

I just made the mistake of allowing the party access to about 200,000 credits at the end of Beyond the Rim (they sold the Nightcaller to Reom) and now they have pimped out all their gear and their rickety old YT1300 looks like a B17 flying fortress

Space combat kills are pretty easy, or at least with a few TIE squadrons (try several minion groups of 3 or 4) you can quickly disable the ship, tractor-beam the wreckage into a waiting SD, and haul them off to the brig. Likewise, equipment is easy to damage with Threats and Despair. In fairly short order you can claw back all that 200,000.

Edit: if you're worried about them just running away in a space battle, add terrain. The terrain rules make going at any decent speed practically suicidal (spend Threats to cause Strain and Despairs to cause Hull damage or even minor crits), and the handling on the TIEs gives them an edge.

It is a **** thing to do to players. And not fun.

I have a player who is an old school roleplayer and becomes depressed if he has a challenging enemy

I just made the mistake of allowing the party access to about 200,000 credits at the end of Beyond the Rim (they sold the Nightcaller to Reom) and now they have pimped out all their gear and their rickety old YT1300 looks like a B17 flying fortress

Tricked out ships with wealthy crew attract lots of attention Pirates

It is a **** thing to do to players. And not fun.

I have a player who is an old school roleplayer and becomes depressed if he has a challenging enemy

Most old school systems usually expect players to be dying at least every other session. I would have thought your old school player would be much better at dealing with player mortality

I have sat down to make an insurmountable challenge, but never with the goal of killing a PC.

Oh, I've done that before. I'll design a prison, all the fences and routines and security checks, go "****, how are they working around this!" and then build a game where they had to break in an rescue a prisoner. So set up a problem I have no idea how they are going to beat? Sure.

Designing an objective you don't know how you would beat is different. They can always choose to walk away if they can't find any way in.

I did have one game (different system) that I intentionally killed half the party. My group was just way too big, and I asked for volunteers to drop out, and warned everyone that if there weren't any volunteers, the next mission would have 50% casualties, and those would be the players to continue. Unfortunately, the 50% who lived turned out to bail on the game within 2-3 sessions, and that campaign collapsed. Moral of the story, if you eliminate players, don't let the dice rolls decide who lives and who dies.

Never needed to. Although I probably run far more deadly than other gms here. Last session the party found that mono blades aren't only for pcs.

I did have one game (different system) that I intentionally killed half the party. My group was just way too big, and I asked for volunteers to drop out, and warned everyone that if there weren't any volunteers, the next mission would have 50% casualties, and those would be the players to continue. Unfortunately, the 50% who lived turned out to bail on the game within 2-3 sessions, and that campaign collapsed. Moral of the story, if you eliminate players, don't let the dice rolls decide who lives and who dies.

Yeah, I can see how that might have gone wrong. I have yet to find a reasonable solution to downsizing a group other than to just say no right at the beginning.

I ran a Deadlands campaign once wherein I planned a Magnificent Seven ending. (I haven't seen the new one yet, so please no spoilers! But the original ended with 4 of the 7 dying very heroically, and the surviving 3 barely making it out alive.)

In the case of my Deadlands campaign, the idea was to have an all-out battle at the end of the story in which the PCs would, pretty literally, save the world even if only they knew it. They would be facing Stone, and Stone's goal was to prevent the heroes from completing their mission. No holds barred. PCs were going to die completing their mission. It was going to be glorious.

But just sit down at the table and say, "frak it, I'm killing one of them tonight?" Heck no. I would never.

So have any of my fellow and far more experienced GMs out there sat down for a session and thought, for whatever reason

"Frak it, I think I will kill a PC tonight"

Now I dont mean committing douchebaggery and rigging rolls or throwing planets on top of wookies,

but pulling out all the safety's and nets and just throwing everything you have at them, to see how the party would fare, to really put pressure on them. Im talking about multple whole squads of stormtroopers, Krayt Dragons, AT-ATs etc, teally turning it up to 11

Nope. Never.

And whole squads of stormtroopers, Krayt Dragons and AT-ATs … well that is kind of right our league. Together with pimped double Inquisitors, dark jedi masters, etc

What I did many times before was stacking the odds in ways that my group will take a hint and retreat instead of fight against all odds … making the group surrender, flee and/or search new allies. Sometimes they get the idea to late and people die. Happens, I am not afraid of that, but it actually never happened to me. Though in the last 10 years or so I have not played a single session as GM, so if I pick it up again, I might fumble and kill someone accidently. Not that I would care about that to much, death of characters is part of the game.

I once GMd a super high weirdness 13th Age Game (propably slightly weird on the 13th Age scale even) where I had designed a Tomb of Horrors Scenario
with a twist: Upon entering, the Dungeon (a living mechanical Being) had scanned the players characters to clone and use them as part of its immune System.
Once the players would have been killed off in a gruesome fashion, they would be regenerated in the midst of the Dungeon.
The Dungeon would then pit the group against other invading adventurers, and kill them off once the danger was gone.

The idea was to have a scenario where 1. I could design encounters where the chance of the PCs to survive was minimal,
and 2. I would have some truly horrific and memorable villains: other clones of the PCs that aligned themselves with the Dungeon.
It doesn´t really count though because there´s still quite a safety net, although my players too had way too powerful weapons
and this Dungeon was perfect to take them away.
....
Except for we never played this Scenario bc we switched to Eote before I could implement it. After reading the Darth Vader Comic Books,
I have been thinking about tweaking and implementing this story though, maybe as a halloween session or something.

To get back to the initial Question, I never made killing a pc my goal for an encounter, but I do take SEApocalypses approach of making encounters
PCs are to run from, not to overcome, and I also made my campaign a life is cheap setting. I did discuss this with the players beforehand though.
In the first Minicampaign (A tweaked version of the Perlemian Haul) one of my players came actually rather close to death, with 6 Critical Injuries,
and the others weren´t off that much better injurywise. But then again, our group is "suicide squad" themed. Most members are criminals forced into service by the rebellion

to die for a good cause .

If you feel your group is too uber with their yt-over 9000 and their superguns and equipment maybe design an encounter not to kill off a chara, but
a space encounter designed to kill their ship (without option of explosion though, maybe a 20 Meter super Mynock or sth sucks the power dry and completely
(and for forces sake figuratively) f*cks their ship up. Then maybe have them crash-land on a planet with no civilisation, where there guns run out of ammo and
they have to drop equipment to survive. Or maybe have a ship come by but its pirates and they´ll only save them if they hand over all (or some of the most uber) valuables.

It´s a tricky thing bc its easy for the players to feel treated unfair if you take all their stuff after they so geniusly managed to get it, so you would really have to make the battle
or whatever will be the reason for their stuff gone epic. Maybe give them sth afterwards thats weak, but special. Like maybe the players were able to steal the pirate captains favourite
Vessel as Vengeance. Maybe its one of the swtor ships, but in incredible good state for being 1000+ Years old.

Sorry for the wall of text

Taking away the toys of a group can be fun, though I don't see the need for that for balance reasons. There is always a bigger fish, especially in star wars. You could hand out a death star to players and it still could be taken away easily from them with a small strike force of 30 fighters.

Taking away the toys of a group can be fun, though I don't see the need for that for balance reasons. There is always a bigger fish, especially in star wars. You could hand out a death star to players and it still could be taken away easily from them with a small strike force of 30 fighters.

Technically two people: One farmboy to crit with his proton torpedoes and one guy to watch his back (and yell "wahoooo!")

If you stat it they will kill it. But take away their +1 vorpal sword and now it's on!

I have sat down to make an insurmountable challenge, but never with the goal of killing a PC.

Oh, I've done that before. I'll design a prison, all the fences and routines and security checks, go "****, how are they working around this!" and then build a game where they had to break in an rescue a prisoner. So set up a problem I have no idea how they are going to beat? Sure.

"Don't look at me! I'm just the one who designed this encounter. I don't have any ideas about how to beat it. I was hoping you would.

In this version of SW, I've run three campaigns with a total of fourteen PCs. I've only had two PC deaths, both in different campaigns. Neither was something I actively set out to do. That said, they were both fairly dramatic and actually served the story well, so I can't say that I would recommend actively avoiding killing PCs either. The rules are fairly kind to PCs in this system, so I just let the dice roll...

I have sat down to make an insurmountable challenge, but never with the goal of killing a PC.

Oh, I've done that before. I'll design a prison, all the fences and routines and security checks, go "****, how are they working around this!" and then build a game where they had to break in an rescue a prisoner. So set up a problem I have no idea how they are going to beat? Sure.

Lol, this exactly.

"Don't look at me! I'm just the one who designed this encounter. I don't have any ideas about how to beat it. I was hoping you would.

When I consider, "hey, making an insurmountable problem for the PCs to solve is lame, it takes away their agency" I counter with, "hm, escape from Death Star, then return to blow it up."

Intentionally tried to kill my PCs no since right now my campaign is still in its fairly early stages I've been going relatively easy on my PCs soon that's gonna change gonna have the NPCs start looking to target specific things like trying to take off hands and things like that.

In the last session I ran I gave my PCs the chance to do a completely optional fight against a Rancor that had been turned into a Sith Spawn I've designed the fight to be hard but not unbeatable but if my PCs are careless/reckless there is a good chance they may die unfortunately we ran out of time and people had to leave so didn't get a chance to see how it would play out gonna keep it for next session to see if they still wanna do it.

But like I said its completely optional and designed to be beatable but very hard

Intentionally tried to kill my PCs no since right now my campaign is still in its fairly early stages I've been going relatively easy on my PCs soon that's gonna change gonna have the NPCs start looking to target specific things like trying to take off hands and things like that.

In the last session I ran I gave my PCs the chance to do a completely optional fight against a Rancor that had been turned into a Sith Spawn I've designed the fight to be hard but not unbeatable but if my PCs are careless/reckless there is a good chance they may die unfortunately we ran out of time and people had to leave so didn't get a chance to see how it would play out gonna keep it for next session to see if they still wanna do it.

But like I said its completely optional and designed to be beatable but very hard

*Off topic* Any chance you could either post or send me the Sith Spawn Rancor stats please?

When I consider, "hey, making an insurmountable problem for the PCs to solve is lame, it takes away their agency" I counter with, "hm, escape from Death Star, then return to blow it up."

Now here's an interesting debate - does it take away agency or open it wide? Sure an insurmountable problem could be seen as railroading, but I see it as they could sneak in, get captured and break out, bluff their way in, organize a frontal assault - or they could simply walk away.

Or escape and come back to blow it up.

Now here's an interesting debate - does it take away agency or open it wide? Sure an insurmountable problem could be seen as railroading, but I see it as they could sneak in, get captured and break out, bluff their way in, organize a frontal assault - or they could simply walk away.

Or escape and come back to blow it up.

Is one group's agency another group's railroading? I guess if the GM didn't prep anything but a Death Star trench run, then yes.

It's only railroading if the players feel railroaded It's more of an "emotional truth" that has little directly to do with the GM's intentions or preparations, and everything to do with how the session plays out in actuality.

If your GM gave you a chance to be awesome, and allowed you make the decisions about how to play your PC, then he did his job. The rest is just window dressing.

I mean I have a player who will be leaving the continent in two months who has expressed a desire to go out in an explosive a manner as possible.

So while I'd never go out of my way to kill a PC, I'm already planning a stand off in which he'll get the Heroic Sacrifice he wants. This does mean that I will be setting up a scenario where a PC has to die but I will let the players know before hand that this is how it's been set up.

I guess it depends on what the players want. While I'm aiming for a sandbox campaign I might slip into railroading to give a player a satisfying exit or if they want a character arc (in my last campaign my GM was able to provide a situation to get my character out of the rut she had been in for a while much better than I could have come up with on my own.)

I mean I have a player who will be leaving the continent in two months who has expressed a desire to go out in an explosive a manner as possible.

So while I'd never go out of my way to kill a PC, I'm already planning a stand off in which he'll get the Heroic Sacrifice he wants. This does mean that I will be setting up a scenario where a PC has to die but I will let the players know before hand that this is how it's been set up.

Yeah, it’s important to let the other players know about this sort of thing in advance.

I’ve been in a situation where the players in question had worked things out with the GM, but the rest of the players hadn’t been warned — and that frakkin' nearly destroyed our playing group for good.