Depends on the situation really. Failure by itself on a check shouldn't necessarily incur death, but a failure and Despair? Most probably. That is the reason those red dice exist, to more consistently challenge the players while providing consequence. Those consequence can occasionally kill a player if the situation is right and more often then not; they won't be able to get out of that situation by themselves.

The meg-train for example, object retrieved, two rounds before you reach the imperial base. A person attempts a jump and fails with despair (environmental factors, and the GM spent a pip, just to really spice things up.). This particular character wasn't carrying the artefact, however just dropping his blaster doesn't really have any impact so the GM decides to do something cool.

"The train shudders as the player is about to jump and the character, losing his footing begins to topple over the edge; all he can see is the racing rocks below and the sleek smooth surface of the train as he begins to fall towards certain death..."

Boom the consequence is established, they are in a situation that will absolutely kill them if they aren't saved at this moment. At this point they cannot save themselves.

"Crap! My marauder does a siding dive and grabs out to catch him! What wo"

"Interesting, roll an athletics check, I probably would say that it's a 2 purple check, but the fact you didn't expect it coming would add 2 setback dice to that pool. Just to keep this interesting..." *spends a destiny point to increase the roll once the player has committed to rolling.

Of course, I would only allow one player to do this; with one player to "aid" the check. I am very keen on enforcing one check, one character rolls for it. At this point even if I rolled a second despair I wouldn't then cause the second character to fall off; but rather lose something else. in the process of doing so; his blaster rifle, a data card, a lightsaber and so fourth.

"You succeed! You just manage to grab his arm firmly in your grasp, you see your blaster rifle tumble past you into the void but you manage to grab and haul that character up. With the advantages however, the pilot seeing this jockeys up closer to the train then he initially dared; making subsequent checks to get aboard a little easier..."

or

"You are just moments too late as you grasp thin air, you only get a moment to see the smuggler get lost in the rush of rocks below. You don't have time to mourn your loss however as the base begins to loom in the distance; you have to get off this train!"

What I did there was put a character into a situation that they alone couldn't hope to escape from and by allowing the players to save one another greatly raises the emotional stakes and the potential for good story telling, even if failed? it would have generated awesome stories that would last a lifetime and hopefully allow a narrative to be built from character cooperation. Of course it depends on the millage of your game; I personally get fairly bored if I don't get to gamble. I am very much a story driven player; but sometimes there has to be consquences that make sense within the narrative of the tale. Sometimes, passing the torch is how the story lives on.

But what if they don't help?

"The character topples overboard as you stand motionless. You all know within that moment if any of you had done anything, you might've had a chance of saving him. Any force sensitives in this party will take 10 conflict for knowing inaction. After all, he was your friend, wasn't he?"

Sure, I imagine many of you would've given the unlucky one chance to save himself, but I don't believe in that. I believe character's are only capable of so much individually. That and it really creates dramatic tension between players; is your the kind of person who would attempt to rescue a character whom was verbally hostile to you earlier? Or is this your chance to betray the captain of your team for a promotion? Of course I would recommend talking about the tone of your game first, that's just how I would envision such a situation playing out.


Also, there are those "stupid" checks that are plainly impossible, jumping a 50 foot gap that's narratively too big? "That's a impossible check. But if you spend that destiny point to even attempt it? Sure. 5 difficulty dice, Given the high winds, I would add 3 setback dice. And you know what? I'll even spend the destiny point on this one. Just be certain that if you attempt this check and fail, you will die. Despairs here would just kill you whether you succeed or fail." be blunt, be honest and let them trust in you that you do have a narrative that will get them where they want/need to be; just sometimes it takes a bit more patience.

14 minutes ago, LordBritish said:

Depends on the situation really. Failure by itself on a check shouldn't necessarily incur death, but a failure and Despair? Most probably. That is the reason those red dice exist, to more consistently challenge the players while providing consequence. Those consequence can occasionally kill a player if the situation is right and more often then not; they won't be able to get out of that situation by themselves.

The meg-train for example, object retrieved, two rounds before you reach the imperial base. A person attempts a jump and fails with despair (environmental factors, and the GM spent a pip, just to really spice things up.). This particular character wasn't carrying the artefact, however just dropping his blaster doesn't really have any impact so the GM decides to do something cool.

"The train shudders as the player is about to jump and the character, losing his footing begins to topple over the edge; all he can see is the racing rocks below and the sleek smooth surface of the train as he begins to fall towards certain death..."

Boom the consequence is established, they are in a situation that will absolutely kill them if they aren't saved at this moment. At this point they cannot save themselves.

"Crap! My marauder does a siding dive and grabs out to catch him! What wo"

"Interesting, roll an athletics check, I probably would say that it's a 2 purple check, but the fact you didn't expect it coming would add 2 setback dice to that pool. Just to keep this interesting..." *spends a destiny point to increase the roll once the player has committed to rolling.

Of course, I would only allow one player to do this; with one player to "aid" the check. I am very keen on enforcing one check, one character rolls for it. At this point even if I rolled a second despair I wouldn't then cause the second character to fall off; but rather lose something else. in the process of doing so; his blaster rifle, a data card, a lightsaber and so fourth.

"You succeed! You just manage to grab his arm firmly in your grasp, you see your blaster rifle tumble past you into the void but you manage to grab and haul that character up. With the advantages however, the pilot seeing this jockeys up closer to the train then he initially dared; making subsequent checks to get aboard a little easier..."

or

"You are just moments too late as you grasp thin air, you only get a moment to see the smuggler get lost in the rush of rocks below. You don't have time to mourn your loss however as the base begins to loom in the distance; you have to get off this train!"

But what if they don't help?

"The character topples overboard as you stand motionless. You all know within that moment if any of you had done anything, you might've had a chance of saving him. Any force sensitives in this party will take 10 conflict for knowing inaction. After all, he was your friend, wasn't he?"

What I did there was put a character into a situation that they alone couldn't hope to escape from and by allowing the players to save one another greatly raises the emotional stakes and the potential for good story telling, even if failed? it would have generated awesome stories that would last a lifetime. Of course it depends on the millage of your game; I personally get fairly bored if I don't get to gamble. I am very much a story driven player; but sometimes there has to be consquences that make sense within the narrative of the tale. Sometmes, passing the torch is how the story lives on.

Awesome way to handle it LordBritish! The risk is there but there’s a way out!

I want to play in your games 👍

5 hours ago, Darzil said:

I'm kindhearted, and if the players want to do death-defying **** in my game I won't kill them on a failure. I will, however, be pointing out how many difficulty dice I'm upgrading to challenge dice based on the action, before I decide whether to upgrade using destiny. And they better watch out for those despairs!

Why do you bother with Challenge dice, if the despairs doesn't bring the consequences? Then really no point of rolling the Despair. A simple fail can explain any other outcome.

Despair should be catastrophic IMO. Especially if the character tries to do something "death-defying". Otherwise it carries no threat, doesn't worth anything.

11 minutes ago, Rimsen said:

Why do you bother with Challenge dice, if the despairs doesn't bring the consequences? Then really no point of rolling the Despair. A simple fail can explain any other outcome.

Despair should be catastrophic IMO. Especially if the character tries to do something "death-defying". Otherwise it carries no threat, doesn't worth anything.

Death isn't the only consequence. Anything that inhibits the character's goals would be a perfectly reasonable interpretation for despairs. You could certainly suffer any number of other critical injuries, lose important gear, alert the enemies, what have you.

1 minute ago, sarg01 said:

Death isn't the only consequence. Anything that inhibits the character's goals would be a perfectly reasonable interpretation for despairs. You could certainly suffer any number of other critical injuries, lose important gear, alert the enemies, what have you.

Exactly. Besides, if a single Despair means death, what do you do when a player rolls two of them?

To each there own.

For me the Star Wars genre is one where very dangerous things are commonly attempted. If something so minor as jumping from a ship to a train has a chance of killing you then the players are going to get highly risk averse really quick and suck out the high adventure/space opera feel of the game. If the player is doing something that obviously even in Star Wars could result in death then sure I'd play it that way. But this isn't usually the case. I like the approach modelled in the Wound/Damage system - PCs are easy to take out but harder to kill but with consequences.

Ratchet up the consequences to make failure more meaningful and keep suspense/tension but death isn't the only meaningful consequence (not by a long shot).

On the one hand not having enough danger - including risk of death - removes the tension and meaning in the game but so does going too far the other direction where players have little investment in their characters because why bother when again they go through the wood-chipper.

I'm on the fence here. Considering how difficult [it's supposed to be] to get a Death Critical in combat, I don't see a single Despair causing a death.

That being said, if a player is going to have their character regularly doing crazy stupid stuff, the chance gets greater and greater just as if they had taken multiple crits.

As a GM, I will almost always err on the side of not killing a character for a stupid mistake. That's not to say I haven't done it but if there is a chance to teach a lesson by keeping them alive and, possibly, injured or having impacted their goals.

2 hours ago, Rimsen said:

Why do you bother with Challenge dice, if the despairs doesn't bring the consequences? Then really no point of rolling the Despair. A simple fail can explain any other outcome.

Despair should be catastrophic IMO. Especially if the character tries to do something "death-defying". Otherwise it carries no threat, doesn't worth anything.

I think you need to reread, I said failures won't kill them, not that despair wouldn't.

It'd take a lot for me to kill off a PC and random, regardless of how many despairs they rolled. After all, my campaigns tend to be based heavily on the backstories of the PCs, so should one of them shuffle off, they might take a good chunk of my plans with them.

Also, random death is pretty boring, and the day I can't come up with a fate worse than death on the fly anymore I'm giving up GMing...

9 hours ago, Darzil said:

I think you need to reread, I said failures won't kill them, not that despair wouldn't.

Neither the failures nor the Despair will kill then; that comes from the Critical Injury from the falling damage when he hits the bottom.

13 hours ago, sarg01 said:

Death isn't the only consequence. Anything that inhibits the character's goals would be a perfectly reasonable interpretation for despairs. You could certainly suffer any number of other critical injuries, lose important gear, alert the enemies, what have you.

They are reasonable way to spend Despairs outside the given situation. "Death-defying leap" for me is risky. And Despair is for the worst possible outcomes, which in this particular case is death.

Obviously, I wouldn't spend a Despair on an Athletics roll to climb up a tree for death, rather a crit, or the tree falling on someone, dropping McGuffin etc, but I was stritcly arguing in the case of "death-defying acts"

13 hours ago, Dafydd said:

Exactly. Besides, if a single Despair means death, what do you do when a player rolls two of them?

You are right, but I wasn't arguing for 1 Despair just the symbol generally.

When I hand out the challenge dice, I already have an idea of the worst possible outcome. If nothing can go wrong, no point of Despair.

In this certain case, at my table I would probably hand out 2 reds. Assuming it's a net failure, 2 Despair would mean instant death. 1 despair, means the jump is failed, you are falling, but there's for example a chance to redeem, or avoid it.

I try to always scale the best and worst possible outcomes from the dice pool, and interpret it in between the too.

On ‎2‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 11:33 AM, AceSolo5 said:

Awesome way to handle it LordBritish! The risk is there but there’s a way out!

I want to play in your games 👍

Aye, I haven't got a game I'm GMing atm, I'm a player in a home game we've had going for the last 5 years and it's been a pretty interesting adaptation. Infact, I have a pretty interesting tale to tell about a death in the party that I will come back and tell when it isn't 2am in the morning. XD


Though in general, the key thing is I rarely see the opportunity of a PC dying as a punishment unlike a lot of people I feel, it's an opportunity to gamble a legacy for cinematic brilliance. The thing with most "the character is on the edge of death" is that that opportunity some come semi-regularly in high risk adventures, but it should largely be reversible by the action of another player around the table , for example the maraulder in my example gave up his turn to get across to the getaway craft in exchange to attempt to rescue his comrade. The real price wasn't the check he made but his turn in saving another member of the team and that to me should feel fantastic, like that character was genuinely worth saving by someone else. That to me should get some feel good vibes going on around the table but the key thing is that there generally, there should be a way out if someone else is in a position to intervene. Three characters in my group died simply because there wasn't anyone close by to save them, one died within a reactor saving an planet, one simply was dealt the "end is nigh" crit while staggered for 2 turns, one simply got swarmed with stormtroopers and blinded, thus simply chose to plunge his platform into the lava even though rescuing him was possible due to the party arriving just in time to see him committing the ultimate sacrifice. Otherwise death is generally rare because we are willing to go out on a limb for one another.

But what if they chose not to save that team member? Well, I feel it's obvious but whether to enact a rescue should generally be a choice. If the character is dislikeable, or if the stakes are too great, or if the only one right at the end of the init order who has yet to act has the choice between saving their friend or retrieving the artefact? True cooperation in my opinion requires the choice to be cooperative, letting a character simply die or be captured from inaction should always be a risk at the back of everyone's minds. The real cost of that characters life isn't even the despair rolled or the difficulty of the check; but the fact that the character preforming the rescue would have to sacrifice something in order to preform that rescue even if that sacrifice was a more optimal turn for the situation that I feel, is exceedingly important.

Of course, this just assumes that it is indeed a "death defying situation" that is inherently really dangerous; it obviously doesn't stand true if there are plenty of get out clauses that would be plausible. Doing parkour on a train speeding over a jagged mountainous rockline isn't the same as chasing a criminal on a second story building, sure the consequences of falling in the latter is likely to take at least one member of the party out of commission, but it isn't going to necessarily kill them either. Sometimes death is unexpected and horrible and a perfect seasoning all in one which is why I liked Solo, I didn't know Birkeets entire crew was going to die because I never saw the trailers, yet the latter heist was sweetened by an example of exactly what the cost would be if they failed.

in Death-defying situations, I think death should be an option. Not just from rolling high enough on a critical hit table, but also from simple common sense. Pushing a character over the edge of a cliff, having that character falling straight down for 200 meters, then hitting the rocky bottom... a couple of bone-crunching noises and something sploshing and splattering.

If my above example happens to a player character, he might get a chance to use an ascension gun to halt his fall. if he has one. Perhaps a party Force user with Move may attempt to use that power to halt the fall from above (and no, using Move to halt the fall of the falling character's belt wouldn't turn the difficulty into a Silhouette 0 object), the mass of the falling character wearing that belt..). Perhaps another character pilots a speeder and could 'catch' the falling character. Death needn't be the outcome, but it should be there.

" But what choice did the character have when being pushed off the cliff? " Simple. To accept that location as the site for a fight. I always try to choose my battlefield. If I don't like it, I try to get the Infernum out of there. when forced to fight there, I try to minimize the risks. If I stand at the edge, I accept the consequences.

On 2/12/2019 at 5:49 AM, kaosoe said:

I'm not surprised this topic has become so divisive. My wife and I actually debate this particular topic often. She is in the camp that a PC death should serve the story and in her games, is actually a choice. For her games, if a PC were to die, she would take them aside and ask them if the player wishes to keep playing that character. If so, she will work the PC's survival in to the story.

I am in 2P51's camp. I think the fear of death creates a fun level of drama and tension. I've been listening to a lot of critical role, and the most memorable events for me from that podcast/stream is when the PCs are facing a particularly tough challenge and barely make it through, or worse yet, only some of them back it through. The roleplay and drama is simply incredible. (But they are paid actors so I don't expect that level of immersion from my players).

Yeah I feel like there isn't a prominent enough amount of tension if death isn't on the menu when the dice deal it. As for Critical Role, I agree 100% that it isn't something you will get from real players because that is a show with production meetings and players who are paid to add to the story and to support each other. There was a big uproar in the 2nd season by the fans when a character actually Died! The show audience was appalled. Which to me was ridiculous.

To me the game is not a story, the game makes a story. If you died then that was part of the story.

16 hours ago, Archlyte said:

To me the game is not a story, the game makes a story  . If you died then that was part of the story.

I totally agree with that. I always warn players when they're risking their character's life and if a PC attempts an "instant death check" and fails then the PC dies. No need for a despair but if there is a triumph the PC the death is not instant and another PC might have a chance to save him / her.

I think you have to give your players opportunities to do crazy stuff like this. It is part of what makes Star Wars exciting. I have a couple players in my group that hate it when their characters get below 50% health /wt/whatever in any particular system and others (like me) that push it to the edge. Part of being a "hero" of the story is that risk that you may not make it. This gets dumbed down in D&D and Pathfinder with the ability to resurrect dead characters but it is still there.

On 2/20/2019 at 8:18 PM, HappyDaze said:

Neither the failures nor the Despair will kill then; that comes from the Critical Injury from the falling damage when he hits the bottom  .

It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end.

Again, I think that there needs to be a fine like between doing something badass and heroic, and doing something stupid. In my example I gave the players an objective, they took the stupidest route to get there, I'm not going to pull punches from them.

In the case of the "death defying leap from the train" scenario, it would HIGHLY depend on how it was RP'd for me. If the players weren't being stupid, I'm not likely going to kill them just because of a single bad dice roll. I will cause hardship. Failures could result in dropping something over the edge, Despairs might cause a scenario where the character falls, but gets snagged on something and the party has (random number here) two rounds to get them rescued somehow before they fall to their inevitable death. Or maybe for the Despair the party drops the McGuffin they were trying to retrieve. Or some other potentially (but not necessarily immediately fatal) misfortune should occur.

Like other folks have said, it's the "death defying" actions that become stories of legend around a gaming table. So I like to provide them for my players, but I'm not looking to TPK because my dice are hot one night (or their dice suck).

Like Smeeg699 indicated, I also think a lot depends on the Role Play part of it. If a player mentions that his character attaches a safety tether to the ship before he makes the leap onto a moving train, the chance to fall to his death will be rather minimalised for the character. Failure would mean the character dangling from the ship he jumped out of. Not splattering himself all over the place. Despair could mean the character not just dangles from the ship, but is headed for And if that safety tether is 'suddenly' there because of a Destiny Point flip, that means the players understood the narrative part of spending Destiny to affect the game. The players then made me a offering to have any negative consequences of their characters' actions be minimalised. Who would I be to reject such?

Sometimes TPK seems inevitable, when you see how the dice fall. Some game nights, "luck of the dice" simply needs to be called "misfortune of the dice". But let's be honest. How many TPKs could have been avoided, in this game system or any other, by the GM simply stating "you feel your foot press down on that tile. You hear a sharp 'click', and brace for impact from whatever traps the mad architect had installed. Nothing seems to happen, however."

The possibility of character death should always seem present. Risk/rewards situations are the life and bread of games such as these. Overcoming the odds makes the characters seem heroic and badass. One character stumbling from the final step of a flight of stairs, breaking his neck because of some freakish critical die roll, and then falling over on top of the preasure plate to activate the death-flamer trap that kills the rest of the party... Death is there, but I find nothing heroic or even appealing to such a TPK.

To me, this all comes down to player choice again. Give me a nice scene where a character dies because she chose to make a last stand against a legion of Imperial troops, buying time for the rest of the party to get away.

I think one thing is clear that if you are a person who is gonna lose their **** if their character dies you should inform your GM of this before play starts. Otherwise ugly can happen from lack of communication.

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

I think one thing is clear that if you are a person who is gonna lose their **** if their character dies you should inform your GM of this before play starts. Otherwise ugly can happen from lack of communication.

Very true. As a GM I also feel it's best to inform such players where the door is before play starts because I don't need that kind of drama at the table.

11 hours ago, Xcapobl said:

Like Smeeg699 indicated, I also think a lot depends on the Role Play part of it. If a player mentions that his character attaches a safety tether to the ship before he makes the leap onto a moving train, the chance to fall to his death will be rather minimalised for the character. Failure would mean the character dangling from the ship he jumped out of. Not splattering himself all over the place. Despair could mean the character not just dangles from the ship, but is headed for And if that safety tether is 'suddenly' there because of a Destiny Point flip, that means the players understood the narrative part of spending Destiny to affect the game. The players then made me a offering to have any negative consequences of their characters' actions be minimalised. Who would I be to reject such?

Sometimes TPK seems inevitable, when you see how the dice fall. Some game nights, "luck of the dice" simply needs to be called "misfortune of the dice". But let's be honest. How many TPKs could have been avoided, in this game system or any other, by the GM simply stating "you feel your foot press down on that tile. You hear a sharp 'click', and brace for impact from whatever traps the mad architect had installed. Nothing seems to happen, however."

The possibility of character death should always seem present. Risk/rewards situations are the life and bread of games such as these. Overcoming the odds makes the characters seem heroic and badass. One character stumbling from the final step of a flight of stairs, breaking his neck because of some freakish critical die roll, and then falling over on top of the preasure plate to activate the death-flamer trap that kills the rest of the party... Death is there, but I find nothing heroic or even appealing to such a TPK.

To me, this all comes down to player choice again. Give me a nice scene where a character dies because she chose to make a last stand against a legion of Imperial troops, buying time for the rest of the party to get away.

This is it. The idea that death is but a dice roll away just doesn't fit with a Star Wars game, if you ask me. This is a setting in which Padawan jumps out of an airspeeder hundreds, if not thousands, of feet up with the intention of landing on another vehicle, and not only does he succeed, but his master's reaction isn't horror, just an exasperated "I hate it when he does that..." A setting where it's considered perfectly reasonable to infiltrate an enemy facility by deliberately getting yourself captured. This system gives so many options other than "You failed your Athletics roll, you fall to your death." What about "The airspeeder you were trying to jump across to lurches to one side, you pull up and skid to a halt at the edge of the roof. Oh wait, is that a double Despair? You were too late to stop yourself entirely and you stumble over the edge, now you're left clinging to an antenna with one hand while your legs kick helplessly in thin air. Oh, and you dropped your blaster as you scrabbled for a handhold, so that's gone into the abyss."

To me, if you're trying to evoke the spirit of the movies, you want to encourage your players to take the risk, make the leap, stop thinking and act . It's hard going in the group I periodically GM Star Wars for. We've played a lot of very "dangerous" games in the past, including a lot of Call of Cthulhu and a long-running Pendragon campaign where there were plenty of Saxons around who could split you in half with one swing of an axe. We've become very cautious as a result, trying to plan everything ahead of time wherever possible. It's been hard trying to get them to understand that they're not risking death every time they take a chance.

3 hours ago, Dafydd said:

To me, if you're trying to evoke the spirit of the movies, you want to encourage your players to take the risk, make the leap, stop thinking and act . It's hard going in the group I periodically GM Star Wars for. We've played a lot of very "dangerous" games in the past, including a lot of Call of Cthulhu and a long-running Pendragon campaign where there were plenty of Saxons around who could split you in half with one swing of an axe. We've become very cautious as a result, trying to plan everything ahead of time wherever possible. It's been hard trying to get them to understand that they're not risking death every time they take a chance.

I planned for this in a recent game where my players, all playing Jedi, was chasing an assassin through Coruscant.

Quote

Plan J for Jetpack

Coruscant is known for it's great walkways, huge crowds, busy speeder routes, and level after level of all of these. If the PCs manage to get ahead of Yen, he takes his alternate route. He managed to find an old Mandalorian Jetpack and get it working, somewhat. It's not reliable to use for long periods but it will get him to another level and, hopefully, out of the reach of the PCs.

Yen slides to a stop watching each of you with jerking head movements. He looks at all the passing speeders going past the edge of the walkway that you have been chasing him on. As he looks back at you, he has a smile on his pug-face and he bolts for the edge, leaping off of it without a care. As you race to the edge, you see a discarded cape falling to the depths of Coruscant and you see Yen flying away with a Jetpack staying closer to the walkways than in the main traffic lanes.

Astute PCs can notice that the flight of the jetpack is not perfect. It's keeping him aloft but not as easily as it should be. An Average ( dd ) Education or Lore check will give the PCs the idea that the pack is not fully functional and is mainly for emergencies and will not take him far.

The PCs have several options at this point, not all of them legal.

• Try to follow Yen on this level watching him from the ledge as they move forward. There is a good chance that they will lose him trying this method, especially once he turns off the main path.

• Use the oncoming speeders to catch up with him.
  Some daring Jedi will decide to follow him using the ever present traffic on Coruscant. The PC must succeed in two Hard ( ddd ) Coordination or Athletics checks upgraded once to catch up with him and get back safely onto the walkways.

  • S + TTT or D means you landed safely on the speeder but it did not continue on the path you were hoping. Add one more check to get back into the chase OR some vehicle blocked your path slowing you down.

  • F + TTT or D means you missed the speeder and are falling. Luckily there are more speeders down below to help you land and make your way back up to the chase. A successful Average ( dd ) Fear Check can give you bonus dice to land safely on another speeder

  • A or Tr can be spent to gain an edge on Yen

• A quick search of the area shows a couple speeders coming to a stop. The PCs can borrow the speeder to catch up with Yen. This will give each PC 2 conflict. If they crash the vehicle or damage it in some other way, the conflict goes up to 4.

Unfortunately, none of the players opted to make the leap and they "borrowed" a speeder to continue the chase.

11 hours ago, Dafydd said:

This is it. The idea that death is but a dice roll away just doesn't fit with a Star Wars game, if you ask me. This is a setting in which Padawan jumps out of an airspeeder hundreds, if not thousands, of feet up with the intention of landing on another vehicle, and not only does he succeed, but his master's reaction isn't horror, just an exasperated "I hate it when he does that..." A setting where it's considered perfectly reasonable to infiltrate an enemy facility by deliberately getting yourself captured. This system gives so many options other than "You failed your Athletics roll, you fall to your death." What about "The airspeeder you were trying to jump across to lurches to one side, you pull up and skid to a halt at the edge of the roof. Oh wait, is that a double Despair? You were too late to stop yourself entirely and you stumble over the edge, now you're left clinging to an antenna with one hand while your legs kick helplessly in thin air. Oh, and you dropped your blaster as you scrabbled for a handhold, so that's gone into the abyss."

To me, if you're trying to evoke the spirit of the movies, you want to encourage your players to take the risk, make the leap, stop thinking and act . It's hard going in the group I periodically GM Star Wars for. We've played a lot of very "dangerous" games in the past, including a lot of Call of Cthulhu and a long-running Pendragon campaign where there were plenty of Saxons around who could split you in half with one swing of an axe. We've become very cautious as a result, trying to plan everything ahead of time wherever possible. It's been hard trying to get them to understand that they're not risking death every time they take a chance.

Even though I'm for the Death side of the argument, I agree largely with what you are saying and I think it falls under GM prerogative. I too have seen the effects of overly-cautious PCs, and it can be a bummer. Faced with that you can either get players to be ok with death, or remove death from the recipe. I think that an ignominious demise or an incidental demise is not gonna happen to a Han Solo (in the original movies) but it happened to Dak and Biggs. I sometimes have PCs who are very big Hero types and other times they are more like galactic denizens trying to realize a hoped-for destiny. Death by dice for PCs is a definite tonal decision as you said.