If I have a player playing a Wookie who decides to wrestle with a Rancor the Rancor will have a furry snack. He might cough up a hairball later on, but if a player character decides to do something like that and is warned about the consequences and thinks its all a joke (I've had a player in the past who thought that in a game of D&D once... he was mad when his character died to the dragon because he felt that a DM wouldn't put in something that the player's couldn't kill) then he deserves what he gets.

However, I prefer it if the players comes up with a really cool story reason for why their character ends up leaving the game through whatever means the player feels is best. I've had a character die a fun, glorious death in a previous game a while ago to save the rest of the party and to allow me the chance to play something different.

I'm also a dice-fall-where-they-fall girl and game master... I always roll in front of players and I don't hold punches. This is why I love games like EotE and Fate and Cortex+ games because these games are designed with all rolls in public view.

plenty of permadeath in the games i've been playing. including WFRP3. most of the players i know lose interest if there is no possibility of death. we are all stating our opinions which are informed by our experiences. in my neck of the woods happydaze is representing the majority.

Welcome to the snowstorm!

colder than i thought

Currently, GMs tend to fudge the heck out of systems to avoid death , which leaves success as the only outcome.

Yeah and this really ruins the game for me when GMs fudge systems in such ways... its one of the big reasons why I prefer games where either death is rare/player chosen or when everybody is on page and accepting that the dice fall where they fall and to me that leads to a real sense of suspense... especially in games like Hackmaster 5e (I so need to get a copy of this game also..so many good games... /sigh) ... anyways...

I don't like GMs who cheat. Don't fudge for me. This is why I hate GM screens when GMs roll behind the screen. I love GM screens for the info they bring but that's why I always lay them flat so the tables are face up. I hate fudging. Let me see the dice and if you roll a natural critical hit and it slams me to the point of death then I will describe my own character's death in a fun, glorious way and if it happens at the hands of Stormtrooper #154512454 than so be it. That's the fun for me. If a GM rolled a crit hit but lied and said he missed, then that just makes my character invincible and that's just no fun. It's why I never use cheat codes in a video game also... I dislike it.

This is why I also love games that give some narrative control to players... so the players can spend some kind of resource, like a Hero Point or Plot Point or a Force Point... something that allows them to change the fate and come up with a reasonable alternative to the dice result. If it makes more dramatic and story sense for a player to lose an arm instead of being killed... that's totally awesome to me. I'd much rather have a captured and injured PC than a dead one, but I leave that up to the Player.

plenty of permadeath in the games i've been playing. including WFRP3. most of the players i know lose interest if there is no possibility of death. we are all stating our opinions which are informed by our experiences. in my neck of the woods happydaze is representing the majority.

Welcome to the snowstorm!

colder than i thought

plenty of permadeath in the games i've been playing. including WFRP3. most of the players i know lose interest if there is no possibility of death. we are all stating our opinions which are informed by our experiences. in my neck of the woods happydaze is representing the majority.

Welcome to the snowstorm!

colder than i thought

I guess that's how it feels to be part of the persecuted majority.

I like the snowstorm also. I don't mind being a special snowflake along with you.

The game comes as written with a deadliness dial. Ie, kill characters or don't. Twist the actual lethality up or down as you see fit. Neither end of the scale really gets to win the slap-fight going on here. But, I have a feeling the point of this thread is probably past its prime since the majority of the past two pages boils down to

Then I think they should stop pandering to the mass who are happy with disposable PCs and start catering to the Elite who prefer character development and story.

the threat of permadeath is not mutually exclusive to character development and story.

in fact some of the best moments of story and character development have occurred because a character died or simply could die.

i'm not talking about a random dice roll / card draw to determine the death of a character out of the blue. players make informed decisions about the risks involved, if it makes sense thematically and motivationally for a character to gamble with their characters life then the intensity at the table is palpable. success is truly meaningful. failure is also meaningful.

if the 'story' been told is dependent on character x surviving then i can see the rails and i'll get off at the next stop thank you very much.

I find it depends on the genre. If characters can't die in Cthulhu or Warhammer, then you aren't doing it right. Other games, not so much.

I think it's more of a social contract issue than anything else. If GMs have to fudge the dice to keep characters alive, then they should reevaluate the rules on character death to fit with what they want. Some games build this into the system up front (I'm looking at you 7th Sea), but others assume that games have to be lethal because of tradition.

That said, my experience is on the special snowflake side. Any more of us and I'll be to looking at my tauntaun as a sleeping bag.

Also have to say years of tabletop gaming experience has told me that players are happier if there is a *risk* of death than without it. With that said nobody likes it when they lose, especially when the stakes are high with a character's life. So this conversation has been talking cross purposes, if people are going to lose a character they don't want it to be cheap but most games would be boring if there was no risk of failure.

Personally I like EoTE as the crit tables give a nice way to have a player to get some scars from combat and death only really comes from prolonged battle or pursuing a path of some really bad ideas (e.g. opening an airlock into space). The risk keeps the drama and excitement flowing which feels more like a game (to me).

To be honest, I don't think anyone really believes that most people wouldn't be better off with a system that doesn't have character death.

I was amazed when I read deadlands reloaded. No balanced encounters. Random rolls and the assumption the characters will know to run when...not if., they get in way over their head. Not all missions should be instantly achievable. Some should be Upton the back burner. Some bounty hunters after you because of the obligation they have should be run away from until the character is ready to showdown. Even qui gon noted there is always a bigger fish. Anakin learned about the consequences of his actions.

Garrett

I tend to not activly try to kill PC's but if they do something stupid enough i dont have much recourse to say well after jumping off the bridge of doom and missing the ledge you fall to your death 400 stories above corescant.

And how does your player feel about that? I don't know, that just doesnt sound fun to me.

well if he decideds to take a ballsy move that there is no real away to avoid death then yeah hes gunna have a hard time staying alive.

In my experience, not dying and failing is much more of a "hardcore" experience than just tpk-ing. How many people would rather have their character branded a coward for running away (even if it was the smart thing to do) than have them go out in a futile blaze of glory?

A lot of players that I've met would rather have their character die than live with their failures, whether that be a severed limb or not stopping the evil plan in time.

To be honest, I don't think anyone really believes that most people wouldn't be better off with a system that doesn't have character death.

With the double/triple negatives I'm not 100% sure what you mean. If I did understand correctly we're agreed. Cheap deaths are bad, no deaths are bad, EoTE has a good/happy medium.

I've seen players die in successful blazes of glory, and I've seen players die in combat due to being outclassed or out gunned. All of them have been memorable in some way or another.

Players WON'T randomly die from pointless things unless they do something extremely foolish, like running around with several untreated Critical Injuries. But I hardly think that we should even consider removing the threat of death unless the players want it. I mean, if the players want their dudes to die for some reason, that's great, and can lead to great cinematic moments. But, that shouldn't be the only thing that can cause people to die. For example, I once had a barbarian kill a Fiend-Binder because he no longer thought that he was in control of his own soul, since he sold it to a contract devil right in front of them. He cut him down in one hit, and no one saw it coming. It was awesome. Alternatively, I had a krogan vanguard in my Mass Effect game biotic charge a reaper thresher maw and detonate a makeshift explosion that killed it, and him, in the process and saved their whole crew.

Similarly, in the movies, some guys die in blazes of glory, or because they want to, like Obi-Wan and Vader. But some don't. Jango Fett, Mace Windu, and Qui-Gon Jinn all die by being outclassed or outgunned. They died. Should they have survived just because their "PC" doesn't want them to? I think not.

Similarly, in the movies, some guys die in blazes of glory, or because they want to, like Obi-Wan and Vader. But some don't. Jango Fett, Mace Windu, and Qui-Gon Jinn all die by being outclassed or outgunned. They died. Should they have survived just because their "PC" doesn't want them to? I think not.

Don't forget Boba Fett. Oh, man ... Boba Fett.

If anything, this game is genius for being the first honest attempt to simulate what happened to him.

I agree with the assertion that it's a matter of genre. It's silly to say that "modern" gaming tries to avoid death. If you're playing Legend of the Five Rings, Deadlands, or A Song of Ice and Fire, death is one stupid decision away. And it's often a stupid social decision, like insulting the wrong person. In Deadlands (and most Savage Worlds based games) that's a good thing, because it makes for a good story, and an experienced player can make a new character in ten minutes. L5R... well it still makes a good story, but character creation takes forever. You're probably sitting the rest of the session out.

But this is Star Wars. In the original trilogy, only one Big **** Hero dies in combat, and it's an epic moment. The heroes are supposed to survive almost everything, but they're not completely invincible. As long as you don't pick fights with disruptor rifles, you should make it to the end. Maybe missing a limb or kidney, but that's why we have cybernetics.

Similarly, in the movies, some guys die in blazes of glory, or because they want to, like Obi-Wan and Vader. But some don't. Jango Fett, Mace Windu, and Qui-Gon Jinn all die by being outclassed or outgunned. They died. Should they have survived just because their "PC" doesn't want them to? I think not.

Don't forget Boba Fett. Oh, man ... Boba Fett.

If anything, this game is genius for being the first honest attempt to simulate what happened to him.

You must have missed where the GM spent a Destiny Point to ensure that his Nemisis didn't die and could return later to harass the PCs (because Boba Fett didn't die in the movies when he fell into the Sarlacc.)

And it's often a stupid social decision, like insulting the wrong person.

I have a player that enjoys doing this constantly. I think I'm going to enjoy having the capability to make my npcs fight back, because this system not only focuses on characters having somewhat realistic limits, but also puts them right in the hives of scum and villany all too willing to shoot first, and pull answers from the datapad on the corpse.

That having been said: I have no idea how critical damage works. Maybe it's the effect of reading so many pages (dear god this tome could kill a man if thrown) but I cannot for the life of me figure out how you can get a crit value of > 100 when percentile dice only go up to 100. Do you just add your critical value to any previous criticals and apply a fresh injury from there? Do you inflict the second critical's original value wound and then inflict the total added wound? GUH.

While I'm at it, two issues came up in character creation today. The first thing was the usage limits of things like stimpacks, medpacks, and bacta canisters: none of them have usage limits listed, so I presumed anything cheap was a one-shot and anything more expensive is a permanent thing (like installing a bacta tank on your ship would guarantee a limitless supply of bacta). Lord only knows if that's correct though, and it would be nice to have some clarification if I missed some rules on the matter.

The other question a player brought up was the desire to dual-wield pistols. It seems like there's no real rules listed for dual-wielding, so I made up a ruling on the spot that he could do so for reasons of awesome, but that it would provide no real combat benefit and his dual pistols would act as one unit in combat (I fully intend to do a double ammo dump on Despairs in that case, tee hee.) Anyone got any advice on that?

The other question a player brought up was the desire to dual-wield pistols. It seems like there's no real rules listed for dual-wielding, so I made up a ruling on the spot that he could do so for reasons of awesome, but that it would provide no real combat benefit and his dual pistols would act as one unit in combat (I fully intend to do a double ammo dump on Despairs in that case, tee hee.) Anyone got any advice on that?

Two-Weapon Combat pg 210.

In regard to getting over 100 on the percentile: There are modifiers to those rolls. Like if you have 1 crit injury already you add +10 to the roll for the next crit injury. Also the vicious trait for weapons add to the roll. For instance the Disruptor Rifle has Vicious 5. It would be +50 to the crit roll.

Two-Weapon Combat pg 210.

In regard to getting over 100 on the percentile: There are modifiers to those rolls. Like if you have 1 crit injury already you add +10 to the roll for the next crit injury. Also the vicious trait for weapons add to the roll. For instance the Disruptor Rifle has Vicious 5. It would be +50 to the crit roll.

Ah, thank you for the references. I blazed through the book in an attempt to get the group's characters rolled and missed all that.

Got any info on the medical supplies question?

Pg 219 for a lot of healing stuff.

Stimpacks have a diminishing return thing going on. The first heals five, the next heals 4 and so on. You basically have to wait 24 hours before you can use a stim at full strength.

There are costs for a full tank of bacta and bacta by the liter but I have not come across info regarding how long it lasts.

Medpacks stuff is on pg 219 and in the gear secition.

There are costs for a full tank of bacta and bacta by the liter but I have not come across info regarding how long it lasts.

Medpacks stuff is on pg 219 and in the gear secition.

I know that Stims have a diminshing return, I should have phrased my question better. My question is: are stimpacks like grenades (one-use items) on top of the diminishing returns for multiple usage? And can medpacks be used multiple times?

Ultimately what I believe the bacta rules to be are that canisters are one-time use and full containers are a "permanent" addition to the character's ship: permanent of course meaning that if I find permanent to be a bit too ridiculous, I can always have it stolen, broken, or needing a refill of some sort. Taking stuff away from PCs is always an excellent motivation for them, as getting their goodies back skyrockets to the top of the priority list

Similarly, in the movies, some guys die in blazes of glory, or because they want to, like Obi-Wan and Vader. But some don't. Jango Fett, Mace Windu, and Qui-Gon Jinn all die by being outclassed or outgunned. They died. Should they have survived just because their "PC" doesn't want them to? I think not.

Don't forget Boba Fett. Oh, man ... Boba Fett.

If anything, this game is genius for being the first honest attempt to simulate what happened to him.

You must have missed where the GM spent a Destiny Point to ensure that his Nemisis didn't die and could return later to harass the PCs (because Boba Fett didn't die in the movies when he fell into the Sarlacc.)

Actually he did die in the movies. It was the EU that revived him.

I have a question for you GMs that prefer not to kill PCs (I'm of the same mindset).

What would you do if all your PCs (or maybe you're only playing with two PCs) were incapacited at the same time (e.g. they were low on strain and all recieved strain to knock them out, or whatever)? Realistically, the enemy could walk up and shoot them in the heads. An alternative would be that the enemy would take them captive...which would lead to an interesting prison escape scene or something, but now your whole planned narrative is thrown off.

So what are some ways to handle this situation where you don't want the PCs to die, but they have all become incapacitated during battle.