I'm a bit turned off by the crit result of 126-130, Gruesome Injury. One characteristic is permanently reduced by 1. Permanently. Non-recoverable.

Does that strike anyone else as odd? This is the one and only example of a permanent reduction of anything in the game. Heck, even starship crits don't permanently reduce any of it's traits. Maybe it could be the chosen characteristic is at -2, or two different characteristics are at -1? Heck, with it's higher difficulty, a -1 might stay around for a bit longer than with the Horrific Injury result.

I'm just not a fan of any system where a random roll of the dice can take something that vital to the character away.

-EF

EldritchFire said:

I think permanent means "until replaced". In the star wars universe full clones can be grown, Repli-Limb Prosthetic organs created and cybernetic limbs/organs build.

LukeZZ said:

Well yes, you can always increase Brawn, Agility, or Intellect with cybernetics, but that's still causing you to be behind the "curve" so to speak.

If they mean 'until replaced' it should say as much. To most people, permanent means just that, it's gone for good.

-EF

I would say that a permanent damage is a damage that cannot be repaired (like an amputated limb, a burned skin, etc…).
But with the star wars technology you could always replace the damaged part with a cybernatic or organic one.
As an extreme example, you could decide to implant your brain into a cyborg body (like Grievous): this way any penalty linked to your old body would disappear.

The wording definitely needs to be cleaned up. If it's truly "permanent" then why even bother with listing a difficulty (presumably for a medical check), right? My take was that it was permanent until repaired/replaced/regrown.

But I agree on the confusion, and, if it is actually unfixable, it's definitely a bit harsh. Then again, getting shot in the face with a disruptor rifle might do such things…

Exalted5 said:

I'm assuming because the critical injury can be healed, just not the permanent reduction effect. Kind of the opposite of the temporary effects that end before the actual critical injury is healed.

FWIW, I like it. Nothing like permanent characteristic loss to put the fear of god (of combat in this case) into the players. It's one of the problems with D&D 3 / Pathfinder / D&D 4e IMO - not having that fear of real permanent loss really contributes to the "kick in the door and kill everything" style of play, which isn't my cup of tea.

"Gruesome Injury" is the first of the "severe" injuries and the least threatening of the "You are very very VERY F***ed up injuries". It also only has a 5% chance of appearing on any roll its even a possibiity for.

I think its fine as it is. If you want to avoid this kind of injury, surrender.

LethalDose said:

I don't think players like surrendering any more than they like running away…

AluminiumWolf said:

I knew that was gonna be your response if you saw that post.

Fighting with 3 critical injuries should be a big risk. If there is no danger of permanent loss, then there is effectively no risk. This is really just reiterating Exalted5 above.

I don't like that I have to pay taxes, but the option is I risk the chance of going to prison. And let's face it, I'm just too pretty for that.

Just like real life, the players (like people) should have choices, but no one said any of the available choices have to be good ones.

-WJL

EDIT: It was reiterating Gribble comments on D&D, not Exalted5. -WJL

LethalDose said:

AluminiumWolf said:

Players don't like to lose. Players don't like rail-track story telling where there is no risk and no consequences to anything they do.

Just because "you don't like it" doesn't mean it shouldn't be a viable option. I guarantee you that my character doesn't like to be captured by the Empire, but that doesn't mean it didn't make the story better when it happened. If there's no risk, success is meaningless. If a plan can't go bad, there's no point in making plans in the first place (and, to keep with the 'I know what every player on the planet want' rhetoric, players love to come up with elaborate plans).

So yes. Sometimes you just have to realize that the fight is lost and it's better to live and fight another day, than to 'go down stupid'. I'm not surprised that you think players like to die from stupidity. I'm not one of your players.

Thank goodness.

Slaunyeh said:

Yes. I strongly suspect that you will find that losing is punishment enough. Hell, it works for every other **** game in existance. Either way, I hope one day to see a roleplaying game designed around the realities of play rather than… wishful thinking. Seriously man, when do players ever surrender? Even if you try to do the scene where five hundred goons appear from nowhere with their guns levelled at the PCs so they can be captured and the bad guy can explain his plan to them you can pretty much guarantee at least one of the PCs will try to draw down on them. H

All the time, if they have to. Stupid (and bad) players whine when they are challenged and risk loosing (ie dying). When opposed by a group of pirates on their ship, sure they try to fight them, but four players against a Nebulon-B full of crazy pirates, well, if they didn't escape because they wanted to take them on, they risk serious bodily harm and being sold into slavery… its not fun for the characters, but the players - mine at least - love a challenge, potential death and unforeseen consequences - escaping slavery and restarting with a new ship, perhaps new identities and such is a great opportunity to get new obligations and get rid of old debts!

If you prefer "railroaded" games, play ludo. "Players" don't "dislike" or "like" anything in particular, except playing games . Which is a social and more or less democractic event, wherein players and GM challenge each other to varying degree… some people like straight forward lead by the nose games where they don't have to think and not really play - which is FINE - others enjoy games where thinking IS involved and where their characters to run the risk of death, where the supernatural or the evil is more powerful than the natural or good. Loosing fingers or ears is not fun for the players on one level, yet it creates stories, emotional connections and investment in the characters and the game. Dying is not fun, but the risk need to be there, otherwise survival becomes meaningless, just to reiterate the points above.

+++++Dying is not fun, but the risk need to be there+++++

Then how do you explain the near total non-existance of permadeath in the online gaming space?

(Course, you always get people on the forums for the Barbie Horse Adventures MMO calling for permadeath and full looting or no fun. The difference between TTRPGs and MMOs is that the MMO people tend to ignore them.) h

Online gaming is something else as far as I'm concerned. By equating online gaming with tabletop gaming - of any sort - you're making a mistake. Sure there are similarities, and perhaps more these days than in the early days - but that is not necessarily a good thing. The principles and framework of an online mmo, or fps, are different than a tabletop rpg or board game… Whereas an online game, for instance mmo is about gear and RPing has little to no impact on the actual game itself, anyways this is derailing the topic of this thread and taking it towards a pointless and meaningless death at the hands of someone who thinks that Online gaming should be the catch-all template for any sort of gaming and that players a little babies that only want to ejaculate their own egos on the table with no risk of getting caught doing it, and suffering the consequences… (with no deviation from said template, only holding hands and guiding the players and keeping them safe and bored.. while some might appreciate this, and games should allow people to play these kind of one sided "things" … they should also allow and supply guidelines for gamers that prefer more grit, more challenge, less cuddly gamepad-oriented gaming)

I really don't think TTRPG players are any more hardcore than MMO players. Probably less so, since they care about story and whatnot.

Permadeath and taking permanent damage to your characters should be the weirdo hardcore masochist option in a Star Wars game, if it exists at all. Drives me frigging nuts that TTRPGs are so backwards on this. d

AluminiumWolf said:

Fair enough - that's your perspective. For mine - it drives me nuts that these things *aren't* a part of CRPGs (MMO or otherwise), and that TTRPGs are starting to pick up on this trend as a "good" thing.

It's nice to see a TTRPG providing more of this, and I applaud FFG for it.

gribble said:

I have to agree here, some of my favorite computer games are rouge-likes that have ‘hard-core’ settings that make it so that if you die, you’re dead. It really makes your character a lot more valuable and a greater achievement. Same thing with TTRPGs, character death is what makes the game fun a lot of the time.

That said, not every campaign should see a character death, two of my favorite campaigns ever did not have a single main character death among them. The tension was built in other ways, via extremely strong opposition and the deaths of beloved NPCs as well as just high stakes all around. It is necessary to have those rules, however , if only for those times where a character death is important.

3WhiteFox3 said:

But would you say a game like that would appeal to Most People?

It is the 'Hard Core Weirdo' setting in video games, but the default in TTRPG. I mean, I'd argue that a lot of people play low lethality TTPRG games just by having the GM fudge it so PCs don't die very often. But still. Why are TTRPGs designing for the hard-core fringe? h

AluminiumWolf said:

It is all relative. I'd have said TTRPG players tend to be less competitive and 'hardcore' than their wargaming and video gaming cousins. h

AluminiumWolf said:

For example, there is plenty of overlap between wargamers, roleplayers and computer gamers. Also, in each of those groups there are people who prefer different styles of war games, roleplaying games and computer games. I prefer the possibility of death; but I know people who don’t; I like rogue-likes, but there are plenty of gamers (even hard core gamers) who don’t (and many who do, it’s a popular genre).

It is the 'Hard Core Weirdo' setting in video games, but the default in TTRPG. I mean, I'd argue that a lot of people play low lethality TTPRG games just by having the GM fudge it so PCs don't die very often. But still. Why are TTRPGs designing for the hard-core fringe? h

Sure, there is some cross-over between the two markets, just as there are hardcore "rogue-like" CRPGs, there are also "beer & pretzels" TTRPGs, but why do you assume it would be a good thing that they both offer the same thing?

For me, when I sit down to a TTRPG, I'm after a "long time" experience - it's all about the story/campaign, the character growth (part of which is suffering permanent setbacks and dealing with them, as well as permanent gains), and living with the consequences of my actions. When I sit down to a CRPG, it's all about the "short but sweet" - most are lucky if they last for weeks, and even the more immersive and freeform CRPGs (such as the Fallout franchise) I tend to play for weeks or months at most, not the months to years that I'll invest in a TTRPG. For me a CRPG is more about mindless fun and gorgeous visuals, not about the long term story and consequences.

And that is why I for one am glad that both broadly provide different styles of gaming, while still having some blurring between the lines for people who prefer their TTRPGs to be more "short & sweet" and their CRPGs to be more "hardcore". And I'm especially glad that FFG have gone for the more traditional "hardcore" style with EotE, because this is a game I want to base some long campaigns around. If I want a bit of mindless hack and slash, there is always the old republic or star wars battlefront…

I'd argue that in DayZ if you get killed, all you lose is your guns, but if a character in a TTRPG dies you can lose MONTHS of accumulated relationships, in jokes, story hooks etc. Character mortality doesn't encourage roleplaying, it encourages people to keep distance from their characters as a defence mechanism and to treat them like the disposable heroes in DayZ.

And where are the TTPRGs for people who are not hardcore masochist weirdos? Why does a Star Wars RPG need permadeath? I can't imagine a situation where anyone would make a Star Wars MMO with permadeath. So why the ever living frick do we keep insisting that Star Wars TTRPGs should have it!

Hell, when the Vampire MMO suggested it might have permadeath, if the Prince of a city called a bloodhunt on a character (The risk was, while the hunt was on the Prince would also be flagged for permadeath) the internet reacted like they had grown an extra head! h

I dunno. I don't think anyone really believes that people choose TTRPGs over MMOs because they want a more hardcore experience. h