I know it's not recommended to create a friendly NPC to interfere in combat incounters.

But...

I have a group of players who are completely new to table top RPGs (so am I) and one in particular who is very used to video games, and judging from his Rocky/Rambo inspired character, very likely to get in over his head and pick fights he can't win.

I was thinking of starting them off with a guide NPC that is slightly stronger than their starting PCs and sacrificing him to let them escape from an overwhelming enemy incounter. Demonstrating via actual dice rolls that life is fragile in this game, and running in guns blazing is going to get you killed.

...or, you could just let the chips fall where they may. But it doesn't mean they have to die. The game isn't actually very *lethal*, it's just incapacitating. SW is all about captures and escapes. So let them be overwhelmed, captured, escape...lather, rinse, repeat. I've started to always have a capture plan ready for almost every encounter in case things go south.

Otherwise you're just delaying the inevitable and setting them up to feel more lucky than they really are.

On 3/24/2018 at 10:52 AM, whafrog said:

The game isn't actually very *lethal*, it's just incapacitating. SW is all about captures and escapes. So let them be overwhelmed, captured, escape...lather, rinse, repeat. I've started to always have a capture plan ready for almost every encounter in case things go south.

Ok, so how else can I establish early on (without killing or maming a PC) that their characters aren't invincible, and instill a healthy fear of their own mortality with actual gameplay vs just because I said so?

Part of my motivation for this is... We are in the middle of session zero and character creation and I told the group that this setting was a Survival/Mystery similar to LOST . And this particular player joked about how he could have better odds surviving if he killed all the other PCs so he wasn't carrying a bunch of dead weight (I doubt he's serious). But I see his point, he's the only character leaning hard into the Survival & Combat skills in a group of more Social and Intellectual characters. So I want to find ways of steering him towards teamwork and away from any video game "murder-hobo" tendencies by using actual gameplay instead of risking offending him by trying to tell him how to behave (unless it comes to that).

So I thought, I'll create a Rival or maybe even Nemesis NPC (named Leeroy Jenkins, lol) who is on the PCs side, that goes in guns blazing and dies in the first non-creature combat incounter.

Have you sat down with your players — especially the one you're concerned about — and discussed what kind of game this is, and what kind of game you'd like to run? You don't need to pull levers from behind the screen if everyone's on the same page. Exactly what you wrote in the third sentence of your OP, gently relayed, could go a long way.

4 hours ago, Mychal'el said:

Ok, so how else can I establish early on (without killing or maming a PC) that their characters aren't invincible, and instill a healthy fear of their own mortality with actual gameplay vs just because I said so?

Well, just like I said: let it happen. Keep in mind, death is only certain if you get 150+ on a critical roll. It's pretty likely starting around 130+, but things can still be done to save the day. But to get a result like that the PC would either have to already have 3 criticals, or be wounded by something with Vicious 3 (or an NPC with an equivalent Talent) *and* you'd have to roll 100 on the percent dice. That's not likely in the PC's first combat.

A PC is incapacitated if they go over their Strain or Wound threshold. This doesn't mean death, it means the PC can't act. Usually this is treated as "unconscious", but you can narrate it however you like. Knock 'em all out, and let them wake up in the brig/local jail/slave ship/etc.

Actually, given that you're all new to this, I would strongly recommend you run a one-off with one of the Beginner box sets. You're worried about conveying something without giving the players any real context...kind of an impossible task for you. The beginner sets really give new players a sense of how the game works, which is important before rolling up "real" PCs...they get a chance to see what works and what doesn't, and what some of the Talents actually do. (Reading the descriptions doesn't do justice to them.) Both EotE and AoR beginner boxes are good, and you can always swap your real PCs for the pregens (which is what we did after the first session). Plus, they come with a set of dice, and PDF followup adventure which is 3-5 times as long, so it's a pretty good deal.

I started off session 1 of my longest campaign by sending some thugs at the PCs that included a Brawn 5 Barabel enforcer with a vibro-axe and forced all of them to surrender.

41 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

I started off session 1 of my longest campaign by sending some thugs at the PCs that included a Brawn 5 Barabel enforcer with a vibro-axe and forced all of them to surrender.

While this, quite aggressively, showed the group the ropes, it however didn't stop them from picking fights with everyone in their way from there on. So, maybe don't quite do this.

9 hours ago, wilsch said:

Have you sat down with your players — especially the one you're concerned about — and discussed what kind of game this is, and what kind of game you'd like to run? You don't need to pull levers from behind the screen if everyone's on the same page. Exactly what you wrote in the third sentence of your OP, gently relayed, could go a long way.

Yes, he and his wife (also playing) are both the type that just have to learn the hard way because they tend to get put off when other people tell them what to do. But they are really nice otherwise and are practically family, and they are actually willing to play in my custom setting.

I want to pull minimal levers. I just want to humble him a little right off the bat using actual gameplay. How would you do that @wilsch ?

6 hours ago, whafrog said:

Well, just like I said: let it happen. Keep in mind, death is only certain if you get 150+ on a critical roll. It's pretty likely starting around 130+, but things can still be done to save the day. But to get a result like that the PC would either have to already have 3 criticals, or be wounded by something with Vicious 3 (or an NPC with an equivalent Talent) *and* you'd have to roll 100 on the percent dice. That's not likely in the PC's first combat.

A PC is incapacitated if they go over their Strain or Wound threshold. This doesn't mean death, it means the PC can't act. Usually this is treated as "unconscious", but you can narrate it however you like. Knock 'em all out, and let them wake up in the brig/local jail/slave ship/etc.

Actually, given that you're all new to this, I would strongly recommend you run a one-off with one of the Beginner box sets. You're worried about conveying something without giving the players any real context...kind of an impossible task for you. The beginner sets really give new players a sense of how the game works, which is important before rolling up "real" PCs...they get a chance to see what works and what doesn't, and what some of the Talents actually do. (Reading the descriptions doesn't do justice to them.) Both EotE and AoR beginner boxes are good, and you can always swap your real PCs for the pregens (which is what we did after the first session). Plus, they come with a set of dice, and PDF followup adventure which is 3-5 times as long, so it's a pretty good deal.

We are playing Genesys, sorry I forgot to mention that. They all want to play this setting that I've been working for years on, and they've already started building characters for.

I'm not too worried about actual PC death. But I do want the players to worry about it a bit. Life is fragile in my setting and it builds dramatic tension. How would you do that @whafrog ?

And I also want to use actual gameplay to discourage the one player from frustrating his "weaker" teammates with murder-hobo or Leeroy Jenkins style tactics.

32 minutes ago, EpicTed said:

While this, quite aggressively, showed the group the ropes, it however didn't stop them from picking fights with everyone in their way from there on. So, maybe don't quite do this.

Also, maiming them in exchange for using tactical nukes didn’t change anything.

2 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

Also, maiming them in exchange for using tactical nukes didn’t change anything.

They really don't learn, do they?

6 minutes ago, EpicTed said:

They really don't learn, do they?

No, they don’t.

5 hours ago, EpicTed said:

While this, quite aggressively, showed the group the ropes, it however didn't stop them from picking fights with everyone in their way from there on. So, maybe don't quite do this.

So what do you think I should do instead @EpicTed ?

11 hours ago, Mychal'el said:

Yes, he and his wife (also playing) are both the type that just have to learn the hard way because they tend to get put off when other people tell them what to do. But they are really nice otherwise and are practically family, and they are actually willing to play in my custom setting.

I want to pull minimal levers. I just want to humble him a little right off the bat using actual gameplay. How would you do that @wilsch ?

I honestly wouldn't try to "humble" him. Stuff like that can just build up antagonism between the player and the GM. It's better to set up situations that can't be solved through violence or threats of violence. That way non-combat characters also get a chance to shine.

And if you really want to bring them down, then do it with minions rather than a rival or nemesis early on. That way they can feel epic and bring down tons of enemies before succumbing to numbers.

No need of an npc there to help. Your Rambo player will understand the game after is first blaster fight. ' oh really after one shot I'm almost dead on the ground... I see!'

Had a Rambo player who went after every single fight. After he made a very bad player move long story short he had an arm ripped off. He had to learn to play with only one arm for a long time before been able to get a cybernetics arm.

4 hours ago, Darth Revenant said:

I honestly wouldn't try to "humble" him. Stuff like that can just build up antagonism between the player and the GM. It's better to set up situations that can't be solved through violence or threats of violence. That way non-combat characters also get a chance to shine.

And if you really want to bring them down, then do it with minions rather than a rival or nemesis early on. That way they can feel epic and bring down tons of enemies before succumbing to numbers.

The Rival/Nemesis in question was supposed to be a friendly who dies against enemy minions so my players learn to be careful from the start. That's what I meant by "humble him a bit", I don't think it would have humiliated him, which I know would build GM antagonism.

But I am worried this player might kill innocent NPCs in social encounters just because he can.

1 hour ago, Storm-Trooper-God said:

No need of an npc there to help. Your Rambo player will understand the game after is first blaster fight. ' oh really after one shot I'm almost dead on the ground... I see!'

Had a Rambo player who went after every single fight. After he made a very bad player move long story short he had an arm ripped off. He had to learn to play with only one arm for a long time before been able to get a cybernetics arm.

No cybernetics or blasters in my low-fantasy Genesys setting. We do have another player playing a doctor but they'll be in the wilderness with improvised supplies most of the time, so a loss of limb would be absolutly devastating, and likely lead to death by infection.

I just want to use gameplay to teach the players that in my setting, death is a recurring villian (not literally), and not trivial like in most settings. The only way I can think of to do that is to have a equal strength friendly NPC die in combat in front of them.

How else would you do that?

Here is a big deal NPC!

Oh no he died!

Is generally not very effective because the PCs haven't played long enough to *know* that the NPC is competent and a big deal. It's the same way that introducing an NPC who then dies 1-2 sessions later to show how evil the Big Bad is rarely works, because the PCs don't have enough time to form an emotional connection to them. If you do make an effort to show how big a deal that NPC is, though, then you spend a session or more overshadowing the PCs with an NPC who's far more capable than them and making them feel like they're wasting their time.

The only real way to show PCs that they can't just fight their way through everything is to let them lose an encounter. That works well in SWRPG where you can have a PC who's incapacitated 'stagger their way to a shuttle' or be captured or something, and actual PC death is very hard to do. You can't really do it well in a game where death is permanent without pissing off the PCs that their carefully-made character has died for no reason. It will only work if you're doing it OD&D style, i.e. lots of disposable scrub characters to begin with that you build up over time.

5 hours ago, Talkie Toaster said:

Here is a big deal NPC!

Oh no he died!

Is generally not very effective because the PCs haven't played long enough to *know* that the NPC is competent and a big deal. It's the same way that introducing an NPC who then dies 1-2 sessions later to show how evil the Big Bad is rarely works, because the PCs don't have enough time to form an emotional connection to them. If you do make an effort to show how big a deal that NPC is, though, then you spend a session or more overshadowing the PCs with an NPC who's far more capable than them and making them feel like they're wasting their time.

The only real way to show PCs that they can't just fight their way through everything is to let them lose an encounter. That works well in SWRPG where you can have a PC who's incapacitated 'stagger their way to a shuttle' or be captured or something, and actual PC death is very hard to do. You can't really do it well in a game where death is permanent without pissing off the PCs that their carefully-made character has died for no reason. It will only work if you're doing it OD&D style, i.e. lots of disposable scrub characters to begin with that you build up over time.

Yeah, my original plan was to have the PCs to be on a jetliner that makes an emergency water landing.

The objective is to help the passangers and crew (about 250 people) get to shore safely on emergency rafts but they are in the middle of a huge school of sharks deadly jellyfish!!!

They meet a strongman NPC that helps fight off the sharks, and once they reach the shore he offers to stay behind and help the survivors while the PCs go off on a scouting party (for fresh water or whatever they want).

They will come back to most of the survivors are kidnapped, and the rest including the strongman NPC are fighting off minions with swords & shields and bows & arrows. If they save the strongman NPC, I'll keep sending more enemies. When he gets incapacitated, the enemies finish him off and retreat into the forest.

What would you do instead?

My advice is just play the game. It's lethal in a good way in that it builds like stairs towards lethality depending on how long a fight progresses, and doesn't start there or take forever to get there. Properly built opponents can be small pox out of the gate, or not, it is very scaleable.

I routinely trigger crits on my guys and they understand that has a cascading effect, they understand a fight that takes too long even with lowlies is going to mean someone loses a leg, or worse.

Even players with zero RPG experience will learn, but only if you roll the dice.

3 hours ago, 2P51 said:

Properly built opponents can be small pox out of the gate, or not, it is very scaleable.

Yeah, I guess I don't have a proper gauge of what that might be. I wish Genesys core rulebook had a table in the GMs toolkit for scaling NPC difficulty.

Modifiers to crit checks. Talent or weapon effect. If you wanna dial up lethality

4 hours ago, Mychal'el said:

Yeah, I guess I don't have a proper gauge of what that might be. I wish Genesys core rulebook had a table in the GMs toolkit for scaling NPC difficulty.

Not really possible with this game. D&D is a straightjacket from the start, and the level progression is very linear, so it's easy to come up with adversary tables. This game takes more experience because the variations within XP limits are so huge. One other reason to get the beginner box. (Don't be put off by the name...most of us here are long time RPG vets, and we still ran the beginner box.) Or at least have a test combat against several minion groups of basic thugs.

A few basic rules of thumb:

• If you have a challenge you want the PCs to barely succeed at, you need to make the negative dice 1 fewer than the PCs have in their pool. If you make the negative dice pool the same, the PCs will likely fail. Plus, you need room to account for setback dice.
• If you want the PCs to succeed fairly easily, then make the negative pool 2-or-more less than the PC's pool. This means at first most challenges will be Easy, because you'll also want to add setback fairly consistently (this will make them crave those setback-removal talents).
• The game favours the attacker. This is intentional, to keep the game moving. With D&D it's often a game of attrition, but with this game the PCs need to keep on their toes, find cover, or just plain try to run away. Defence is rare and somewhat expensive, as the most effective defences come from Talents and Force powers that take a while to get to, and not all of them are available to everyone. So it's likely, at least at first, that a couple of minion groups of thugs shooting at short range will take down a single PC within a couple of turns. With a group of 3 thugs, they'll likely have a pool of YYG, and at close range they'll be rolling against one purple...a pretty easy shot. With that in mind, you can scale your group size accordingly.
• Scale your damage output according to the Soak and Defence the PCs have. If they have only 2 or 3 Soak, then blaster pistols will still be effective. If they start building up to Soak 5 or 6, you'll need blaster rifles to avoid plinking (unless that's what you want).

Actually, had a thought for your OP question: you could have some blood-thirty horde come screaming over a hill. They take out a couple of unfortunate NPC allies instantly, but they're at Extreme range. It will take two turns for them to get to Long, so the PCs have time to act. Maybe your Rambo thinks he's going to make a stand, so make sure he has a long range weapon. Once the horde hits Long range, let him take his shot. Tell him to Aim twice (gives him two extra boost dice). Even if he succeeds, he might take down one minion...and there are 49 to go... Do you think he'll get the hint? Will he wait until they're at Short range before bolting?

Basically, the point is, if you want the PCs to run, sometimes you have to make it obvious there is no other choice. If he wants to try and take a stand, give him a noble death and let him make a new PC.

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

Basically, the point is, if you want the PCs to run, sometimes you have to make it obvious there is no other choice. If he wants to try and take a stand, give him a noble death and let him make a new PC.

Lol, I'm 99% sure his new character would be his dead character's twin brother.

12 hours ago, Talkie Toaster said:

It's the same way that introducing an NPC who then dies 1-2 sessions later to show how evil the Big Bad is rarely works, because the PCs don't have enough time to form an emotional connection to them.

I will definitely take your advice. But if I can't get at least some of my players to form a emotional connection with a NPC within 1 session then maybe my storytelling could use some work.