Hi all,

One of my PCs is departing the group for overseas after her last session this weekend.

We are playing AoR and she is one of 2 force sensitives in the group (but her character doesn't know she is Forcey)

I left the last session that they discovered an ancient Sithlike tomb and she found inside an omninous alter a sinister looking helmet and proto-lightsaber (spluttering between red and yellow). The other Force sensitive found a set of paired shotos. They were then immediately attacked by the tomb statues which turned out to be old HK droids. end session.

We are working through the second episode of Onslaught on Arda 1, and will be introducing 2 new PCs 2 replace her from the abandoned pirate base (which I will turn into a crashed ship)

My question is to the forum, any advise to kill off the PC dramatically. I want the lightsabres dark presence (there was a force-ghost voicey thing) to consume her in some way, and then die dramatically (destroying/removing the lightsabre in the process, because I don't want the other forcey to have it)

Well, first of all, did you and the player agree to this? Just asking.

As for that, maybe the voice attracts the player into this dark and deep cave, unknowingly into a booby-trapped room where it's set to explode?

She has asked me to kill her off, yes

Geeting specifics from her has proven more difficult, so I am doing my best

So what if you do not really kill her off but make her a recurring adversary of the group...? That would make things somewhat more personal in the future. As for the magical ghostey speaking lightstick... she could claim and take it with her. Even if it were to fall in the hands of the other forcy char, have the bad influence be somewhat discouraging. But back to her... she could sijmply struggle with the influence for a while, maybe she even gives herself to the darkside to defend and save her friends but is utterly consumed in the process. You can have the voice tell her that they (her friends) want to take away her power and will betray her (they will likely try to free her from the influence). She may then turn against them, trigger a trap, and make off with her loot.

On the more heroic side, she may suffer the same struggle, use the dark powers provided to save her friends and realize that she is about to overcome... she does not have much time and only two choices, sacrifice and die for her friends or be consumed (you can even leave the choice to her). Maybe have a deep chasm handy for her to jump into, but she could of course also beg her friends to kill her or do it her self with the saber... maybe she even utters a warning as her last words. If anyone still wants the cursed object after that... well... I gather they deserve to have a very hard time.

What ever you end up doing... make it dramatic and memorable (do not forget to have the right music handy).

Just some storming of the brain... maybe it helps.

I kinda like that idea.

Make her into an adverary who is taken over by the dark spirit. You can keep her around for when the player visits to play a session or two (the pc gets the upper hand of the dark spirit for a brief time then succumbs again!)

Of course that would be up to you and said player but hey, sounds like it could be fun and a troubling conundrum for the other players.

Much easier and more satisfying to have her escape and take the stuff with her. Maybe she also secretly found a Sith Holocron that has been speaking to her, reasoning with her how she's better off on her own. Whatever the reason, she takes a ship and escapes after disabling the PC's ship in some way that delays them chasing after her.

At some point they could try and redeem her, or kill her, or leave her alone...if redeemed she would be a friendly NPC but her experiences would leave her scarred. She would never return to her old life.

If they make a move to kill her, they will discover that she has many new Force abilities and is powerful with the dark side.

If left to her own devices, there's all sorts of things that she could get up to.

But I have never been able to make a "player is leaving, let's kill his PC off!" satisfying.

Well,

I tried my best, and so did she.

I crashed their pteropter, threw 2 tunnelling Garnix's at the group, and even had a Azerdactyl attack them on the flight back to base.

She just wouldn't die. Well, I did knock her out and partially melt her under acidic bodily fluids, but the team rushed to save her (read: save her lightsaber)

And the pilot did too good a job dodging the Axerdactyl.

So now she is barely alive with a mangled arm and acid burns all over her. and her lightsaber is majorly damaged from the acid.

Time to dunk her in a bacta tank for 12 months (oooh, maybe the acid doesn't react well to bacta...)

16 minutes ago, Funk Fu master said:

Well,

I tried my best, and so did she.

I crashed their pteropter, threw 2 tunnelling Garnix's at the group, and even had a Azerdactyl attack them on the flight back to base.

She just wouldn't die. Well, I did knock her out and partially melt her under acidic bodily fluids, but the team rushed to save her (read: save her lightsaber)

And the pilot did too good a job dodging the Axerdactyl.

So now she is barely alive with a mangled arm and acid burns all over her. and her lightsaber is majorly damaged from the acid.

Time to dunk her in a bacta tank for 12 months (oooh, maybe the acid doesn't react well to bacta...)

Well, that's a way to knock out a PC without them being killed.

Have her be a little disturbed by them being more concerned with her lightsaber than her.

She goes off on her own to vent/try and prove she can still pull her weight/sort out this mysterious voice she hears and weird abilities she keeps demonstrating.

Boom, captured!

3 adventures later . . .

"Hey, doesn't that Imperial agent look a little . . . familiar?"

They come back from a mission, encounter, dinner out and she's gone, out of the bacta tank far too early. Don’t see her again for a while.

Obviously, the other players will want the lightsaber, so make it obvious that her condition worsens unless it’s nearby. That way, it’s around for her to grab on the way out.

As a twist, I would have her taken over by a light side paragon’s spirit, a foe of the evil spirit who had actually possessed someone else... Maybe a trusted NPC who comes to the party with those new PCs. When they eventually find all this out, reveal that the NPC was the one who took the lightsaber, and still has it...

(Of course, the paragon spirit that’s taken over the old PCs body doesn’t care about modern problems like the Empire, and is obsessed with fighting any lingering evil from its time.)

On 07/12/2017 at 0:13 PM, awayputurwpn said:

Much easier and more satisfying to have her escape and take the stuff with her. Maybe she also secretly found a Sith Holocron that has been speaking to her, reasoning with her how she's better off on her own. Whatever the reason, she takes a ship and escapes after disabling the PC's ship in some way that delays them chasing after her.

At some point they could try and redeem her, or kill her, or leave her alone...if redeemed she would be a friendly NPC but her experiences would leave her scarred. She would never return to her old life.

If they make a move to kill her, they will discover that she has many new Force abilities and is powerful with the dark side.

If left to her own devices, there's all sorts of things that she could get up to.

But I have never been able to make a "player is leaving, let's kill his PC off!" satisfying.

This I would have to agree with really. If you do not want a lightsaber falling into the parties grasp, DO NOT GIVE THEM THE LIGHTSABER. Any time you have a lightsaber wielding antagonist present, you open up the chance of the party obtaining one such things. If one was expecting any other outcome; then look back at the bolded. If you present them a lightsaber, they may have chance to have a lightsaber. So if you definately want them not to have one, DO, NOT, GIVE, THEM, ONE.

I have never witnessed the "lets kill the player arc" work out well. The only time a character death actually works out well is if a situation is left to develop organically, and expressively with the tables cooperation when such an action occurs. One example is below.

The first time we had a major character death staged it was an event that came out of the blue. After the party was exhausted after destroying a imperial base that produce Gand operated Tie Raptors and after a hyperdrive jump gone wrong, two members of the party, a sith trained turned emergent Rodian named Tobin Stryder and the nameless Gand (forever dishonoured after making a bomb that killed a rich Gand's son) ended up over Osis, a planet under complete quarantine without the slighest knowledge of who they were with an immense star destroyer over orbit2. After shaking patrols we noticed an crashed imperial shuttle with the rebel logo on and; without much idea where we were, we landed and headed to the temple; we were attacked on the path by rapidly landing patrols of storm troopers and with great urgency the isolated members proceeded up through the ruins; improvising spare battery packs as explosives as a booby trap to buy us as much time as possible for enforcement to arrive with a location of this mysterious planet.* At the entrance the sole Jedi of the group, a beaver person called Raine met us just within it's grounds imploding us to move quickly to secure the artifact; she had forseen us landing here and it was her duty to get the artifact and leave quickly. In the meantime we passed through rooms, completing various challenges and reuniting with comrades (A human Shien/Shadow/Slicer called Jacen and a drunken Gunner Galish) as we proceeded until we ended up under a waterfall, with the staff in the tree. Tobin reached into the tree by nurturing feelings of tranquillity, finally finding the enlightenment he had so desperately aught. All the while Raine began planting explosives around the tree roots that hung over a great drop.

Then the rattling breath kicked in and Lord Vader stepped into the room, having finally made his way to the battle within the temple. Immediately Tobin turned and ignited his lightsaber; for the first time the sith trained assassin felt the full power of a Living sith lord, how he was dwarfed by him in both power and exhausted after two straight days fighting, despite that the Rodian turned and ignited his lightsaber with his pupil Jacen along side him, Galish whirling up the mini-gun and Raine at the rear.

Only, the Jedi force threw the Rodian to the ledge away from him and told the others to leave immediately as she engaged Vader with everything she had. Tobin and Jacen left immediately after the former commanded the tree to assist Raine as they saught to deliver the staff far away from Vader, only Galish stubbornly refused to leave her comrade as he pounded the sith lord with blaster bolts from that ledge, Raine; content that the party was at least in a position of safety, grappled Vader with the last of her strength, detonated the charges and both plummeted down the waterfall to their apparent demise. Only, Vader survived the worst she had to offer him, but was now at the bottom of a mountain where he could not easily interfere with the squad's escape.


It later turned out, when talking to her apprentice that she had foreseen that the entire of Predator squad would have died if they had confronted Vader at this point in time, and thus she left her lightsabers and took off with a training saber to change that future she had seen. She had also foresaw her own death and was fine with it; her sacrifice would enable those force emergants to grow into a full river. Even Tobin, who was a Jedi hater due to their interference mentally and from two years of mental conditioning from a dubious sith artifact, came to regret and respect her passing. It was her that would allow the squad to contribute greatly to the battle of Endor and disable the second shield generator.


The thing is although we weren't told before time, we all had lightsabers and we respect wishes around the table. Plus the situation evolved organically, a mixture of exhaustion, the immense, overwhelming threat and so much more made it believable that a long standing member of the squad would chose sacrifice. The player wanted to replace the character but at the same time wasn't in any hurry to do it on a whim, thus the situation was set up as a contingency and added on to the hyper drive related despair that generated the situation. We as a seasoned group of 3 years respected that wish and allowed the character to have a glorious send off, we didn't have angry greed as the force emergants did have lightsabers, or access to materials to build them.


Do not set up half baked situations to arbitarily remove a lightsaber from the party. There are plenty of ways to make their lives harder then putting up invisible walls and unrealistic situations. Such as issuing a bounty on anyone IDed with one. For an entire year I concealed a lightsaber I had constructed (and was inhabited by said sith spirit) was because wielding it was much more danger when it was worth. I only started using it after we attempted to blackmail the empire with the deathstar footage and it went horribly wrong. I guess being IDed as a possible Jedi was an inconvenience at worst at that point, at least considering we had not encountered any inquistors yet... Oh boy, that changed quickly.

1Funnily enough the backup team chose to land their freighter in the open, right next to the temple. So funnily enough they had it grounded and locked down. I remembered my PC absolutely giving them bloody murder over that; *My frighter was literally the only craft capable of taking us off planet, and you parked it right next to the imperial advance? If we ever make it out of this alive, remind me never to trust you chumps with the escape plan again!* XD Though in all seriousness both as a player and a PC I was postivily furious that we might have met our end because people never actually bothered to take the imperial threat seriously! We ended up having to fight our way through about 30 stormtroopers to get aboard. They haven't made that mistake since.

2: Our character's weren't familar with Vader back then, thus we didn't know the difference b

1 hour ago, LordBritish said:

If you do not want a lightsaber falling into the parties grasp, DO NOT GIVE THEM THE LIGHTSABER.

So true. I had an Inquisitor Force leap across a hanger to try and spear a PC inside his Advanced TIE fighter. Inquisitor missed. PC pulls his DragonEye Reaper, puts it into the hole made by the lightsaber, and, despite plenty of setback and a DP flip, gets a hit, advantages, and a Triumph. First PC question: "Can I make him drop his lightsaber?"

So they got both a TIE Advanced, and a lightsaber...

14 hours ago, whafrog said:

So true. I had an Inquisitor Force leap across a hanger to try and spear a PC inside his Advanced TIE fighter. Inquisitor missed. PC pulls his DragonEye Reaper, puts it into the hole made by the lightsaber, and, despite plenty of setback and a DP flip, gets a hit, advantages, and a Triumph. First PC question: "Can I make him drop his lightsaber?"

So they got both a TIE Advanced, and a lightsaber...

You mean all your Inquisitors don't have the Resist Disarm talent??!

I don't think I knew it existed. In any case, at the time I figured it was a cool enough scene to not question it.

But the point remains: whatever you give the NPCs, the PCs will inherit.

I can’t help but echo the idea to make the departing player’s character a reoccurring antagonist.

I’ve GM’d a few campaigns where someone has left or really, really, screwed up with a character and it works.

It’s also pretty cool to talk to the player later and tell them what you did with their character.

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

I don't think I knew it existed. In any case, at the time I figured it was a cool enough scene to not question it.

But the point remains: whatever you give the NPCs, the PCs will inherit.

You mean all your bad guys weapons don't have fully-modded Gene Lock that makes it explode when someone else tries to use it??!

On 12/18/2017 at 5:51 PM, awayputurwpn said:

You mean all your bad guys weapons don't have fully-modded Gene Lock that makes it explode when someone else tries to use it??!

You can do this once, maybe twice, before players start calling foul, especially if after the first one you don't give allow them to attempt to remove the gene lock attachment somehow. If you never let the players have any of the "cool kid toys", and use cheep tricks like this to deny them gear, you will have them become disgruntled at best, and outright quit the table at worst. There are much better ways to handle loot acquisition.

5 hours ago, TrystramK said:

You can do this once, maybe twice, before players start calling foul, especially if after the first one you don't give allow them to attempt to remove the gene lock attachment somehow. If you never let the players have any of the "cool kid toys", and use cheep tricks like this to deny them gear, you will have them become disgruntled at best, and outright quit the table at worst. There are much better ways to handle loot acquisition.

You mean all your players don't quit on you after a few sessions?

On 12/22/2017 at 0:34 AM, awayputurwpn said:

You mean all your players don't quit on you after a few sessions?

I have about 5 star wars games going right now, 3 of which have been going 6+ mo. One of those two just started, the other won't start until the new year. So yeah, I don't have players rage quitting. Usually when I lose a player its due to real life circumstance.

Have you ever considered the sweet meteor of death?

Clean and quick.