https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/10/18/gm-guide-the-ultimate-sacrifice/

I'll admit, much of what this guy writes is arrant nonsense:

'Buy moar minis!!!'

'Oh, this game has funny-shaped dice! You should totally use them to tell cool stories and stuff, like you've been doing for the last four years!'

'Buy even moar minis!!!!'

But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and I couldn't find anything wrong with the latest article. Granted, he doesn't really tell us how to achieve what he's talking about, but he at least mentions that it would be a cool thing and we should totally do it.

I didn't personally care for 'Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies: A Star Wars Story'. I feel it was a story that didn't need to be told with characters that didn't matter. I'd have preferred a look at the scum and villainy from the Force Awakens era than re-tread Death Star 4.0 and those horrible digital cameos from actors who have passed away.

But the concept of 'sacrifice' seems very fitting and very much in the theme for the game and genre. Star Wars owes as much to WW2 movies as it does to legacy sci-fi after all.

When we started our game and were working out what needed to change, we made a list of the stuff we liked, and the stuff we didn't. The no#2 dislike was 'Sacrifice Is Cheap'. That is, people who die in the movies are either redshirted (killed off shortly after they are introduced just to prove a plot point, then promptly forgotten about) or they come back as Casper the Friendly Force-Ghost or Gandalf the White.

So having something a bit grittier, having existing, important characters die and stay dead, seems very much keeping to the genre.

It's long been mooted that the endgame for our AOR campaign will involve the destruction of the Death Star, and it will be a one-way trip. 'Shoot Me Here' buttons are cheap - if we've established the Death Star as the campaign equivalent of the One Ring ('everything bad ever made by mankind' as Tolkien put it) then it shouldn't go down without a fight. Destroying the Most Evil Thing Ever Made really is a reason for the players to sacrifice their characters and not feel cheated. (And they have the additional moral quandary to ensure it doesn't fall into the hands of their superiors and they really do destroy it for good.)

Soooo.... anyone got any Total Party Kills that actually felt worthwhile, or just poignant sacrifices from their FFG games?

Yea, I thought the latest article was kind of "meh". Maybe I've been doing this so long that nothing he brought was new to me, storytelling wise. I could see how it could be a good article for new players though.

Dramatic deaths in any of my games over the decades? Not really. Never come to that point on the story.

Look forward to hearing others stories though.

My party had a beaten up old B1 battle droid in their original lineup. Had the serial number 5493, so he went by Sage. He was previously owned by a group of bounty hunters, `and they'd made a bunch of modifications; programming him to use only non-lethal methods was a big one, as well as installing a mini-torpedo charge in his torso, rigged to detonate if he was ever taken out. All the player's ideas. Sage was very aware of these modifications; he desperately wanted to be able to

Later in the campaign the party got tracked down by an Inquisitor. The battle was pretty tough; they were way out of their depth, and only barely managed to push the Inquisitor down to a fighting retreat. Sage wasn't satisfied with letting the Inquisitor retreat, though; he knew it'd just mean they'd get ambushed again soon, and they probably wouldn't survive a second attack. Plus, considering his history as a soldier in the CIS, he wasn't the biggest fan of force-users. So as the Inquisitor force leaped away, he said he wanted to pursue her with his jetpack. I made it pretty clear that the other party members had no reasonable way to keep pace with him, and that considering he had two wounds left, it might not be the best move ever. He persisted.

Then he asked if he could tackle the Inquisitor mid-flight. It seemed like a pretty awful idea. Then I realised what he was planning, and made it very clear that if he dies here, there was no chance of coming back from it. He didn't seem put off, so we went with it. Sage tackles the Inquisitor in mid air with a pretty nice brawl roll, and I let him pin her to the ground for a bit of narrative flair. Just as he'd planned, she proceeds to press her lightsaber hilt up to his torso and ignite it on her turn. Already riding on several crits and very low wounds, Sage bites it. Just in time for explosive charge to go off right in the Inquisitor's face. She's sent flying, knocked out and taken down to a Bleeding Out crit, leaving the rest of the party an easy target to finish off while little bits of B1 droid rain down around the battlefield.

It was a pretty unnecessary sacrifice, but a cool one, and it gave the rest of the party good character development fuel. And he finally got to use lethal methods, somewhat indirectly

One of the other party members held onto Sage's charred head and kept it displayed on the ship's bridge for a while as a memento. Recently though, the party got involved in taking down the TIE Factory above Nar Shaddaa as part of a partnership with the Rebellion. To do the job, the party member stripped out all the internals from Sage's head, and filled it up with the blasting components of several baradium charges. After getting lodged in the core of the space station, Sage now has the biggest kill-count of the whole party, despite it being posthumous

Soooo.... anyone got any Total Party Kills that actually felt worthwhile, or just poignant sacrifices from their FFG games?

It wasn't in an FFG game, but many years ago I was running a one-player Star Wars game in the old WEG d6 system. The character had been through numerous adventures, and was starting to feel a little stale. The player (my best mate, Paul) didn't feel there was anywhere to really go with him, so asked if we could kill him off and kick off a new campaign.

We finished the campaign with the Battle of Yavin. I figured that with the number of TIE fighters likely available on the DS, all we ever saw on-screen of the BoY was the main protagonist(s). That while Red and Gold squadrons ran on the trench, there were scores more Rebel fighters up higher, running interference against the waves of TIEs. Paul's PC was one of those pilots, flying an old Z-95 (the trench run was where the best fighters were used).

The battle was epic, and was the first time I'd used background music in a game (on an old cassette tape - that's how long ago this was!). After a number of altercations, Red Five was making the final attack run, closely followed by Vader. Most of the Rebel squadrons were destroyed, and Paul was one of the very few left. He himself was badly injured in the cockpit, which was venting atmosphere and had its weapons disabled.

Along comes the preparation to fire. Remember someone on the Death Star says: "Stand by". And then a few moments later says "Stand by" again?

Well, that was because Paul saw that Red Five wasn't going to make it in time. He might be rescued by the freighter coming in, but he just wasn't going to get his shots off before the DS fired.

So Paul lined up one of the focusing crystals around the edge of the superlaser and put his ship to full speed, ramming the crystal. The explosion vapourised him and his Z-95, but it also damaged the crystal, forcing the Death Star Gunners to switch to a secondary backup, which bought Red Five about ten more seconds, necessitating a second "Stand by" from the gunners while they switched over.

So while Skywalker was the hero of Yavin, there was also a (albeit quieter) toast hoisted that evening on Yavin 4 to Raven Four, and its heroic pilot who sacrificed his life to allow Skywalker his amazing shot.

Pretty corny now, in hindsight, but **** we had a blast at the time!