Average Life Expectancy of your Players Characters?

[Fallon Kell]

By the power vested in me as GM, by my two brothers, I declare those two characters dead, eaten slowly over the course of a week by carnivorous ducks.

Feel better now?
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Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier

Complete Starship Construction System

[Kaloth Varsk]

[garhkal]

Bringing this thread up to update you all on some of my more recent PC's that have died.. Two night game session for some buddies.. 3 total dead in that long session.
One died from going into a known area of airborn toxins saying :Well i am a gand i don't need to breath", forgetting i mentioned "THe toxins are absorbed through the skin, not the lungs". And after 3 rounds in it, eventually collapsed. No one got to him in time to save his butt.

the other 2, were from jet packing over to the neck of a pair of AT'AT's pounding the base they were defending, trying to set exposives on the neck to kill them.. (destroy them)..
First one went off without a hitch, but the demo'/damage roll didn't beat the AT-AT's hull roll..
Then they tried jet packing over to the 2nd at-at, and it shot at them.. The guy being carried forgot that the jet pack skill is what you use to DODGE enemy fire, not the dodge skill, when using jet packs.. Got hit by the AT-AT's chin laser cannon.. Both fell down mortally wounded, causing one to die from the fall, the other just bled out..

Then in my 2 ADND 2nd edition groups, one that started up last year around Sept time frame, but lasted only 16 weeks (till 3 of the group moved away/got into too much work and other stuff, leaving only 2 who didn't want to continue the group with just two players), and another i started up three months back..

For the first group; Had a Bard pc fleeing one battle (his bard character was wrote as a bit of a coward), while on an island KNOWN for having creatures on it akin to those flying beasts from the Riddick film, Pitch black. Got rumbled into by a 4 pack of them.. and since was on own, had no help.. Died very ignobiously.
Several other's died from fighting Giant scorpions, getting stung and failed their poison saves.. One died from fighting an ogre and getting critted (after already getting taken down into the low HP's from the rest of the battle).. And a LARGE # of henchmen died from fighting ghouls and 2 other types of undead (one a large skeleton like creature of my own making, that explodes, showering those who killed it in melee, with flaming shards of bone)..

For the 2nd group; i have had one player leave for a 2 mo period as his work seriously ramped up his weekend work due to a massive order coming in (he hopes to rejoin in mid august once things die down), so he allowed me to have his PC and his back up PC be 'killed to help further things along. Another pc died from ghouls (along with a DMNPC) in the same battle. 2 more henchmen and 1 man at arms died from fighting a large group of hob-goblins that the party just HAD to fight (they were seen but could easily have avoided the combat as THEY were on horses, while the Hobs were not, but they chose to fight 14 of them with a group of 5 of them)..
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[Sutehp]

[Volar the Healer]

Average length of a D6 character's life...Hmmmmmm.

I've run a campaign where all of the characters were dead in three games, and another where at least some of the original characters were still going after five years.

We lose one character maybe every four game nights, or so. Skilled players often survive where less experienced die by charging in recklessly.
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[Bren]

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

My longest SW campaign ran seven years with five players and five PC who played all seven years.

Sure, we had some NPC fatalities. Several of them, in fact. But, not one PC died.

This was using SW R&E. CPs help keep a PC safe.

[Solo4114]

I just have to say that I find this thread endlessly fascinating. There seems to be some genuine differences in GM styles, and from reading the 1E book (I've yet to get a chance to play or GM), the book itself treats PC death as something that should happen pretty infrequently, and only at plot-appropriate moments.

This stands in contrast to some of the attitudes here (and, to some extent, my own), which I think is great. It's nice to see such a variety of attitudes about the game.

Personally, just on my own gut instinct, I think I'd vary my approach based on who the party is. If you're GMing for kids...I think it really depends on the kids. How old they are, how capable they are of appreciating risks, and basically whether having their character die is gonna ruin their fun. I'd like to be able to get them to understand that character death isn't necessarily a horrible, game-ending, fun-ending thing. It's just something that happens in RPGs. Towards that end, I might just have them roll up a new PC if the old one died, and figure out how to work them into the campaign later. Or we could pre-generate a few PCs to rotate in, in the event that another dies.

With older players who are cool accepting the risks, I'd probably let things be more lethal. I expect they'd be better able to grasp the risks and not be as bothered if the dice came up against them.

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

Solo, the D6 SW game is very versatile. You can easily make it as deadly or as heroic and non-deadly as you want it to be. With 2nd edition, it's easy to control how many Character Points a character gets.

First Edition is a deadlier game, in my opinion (some disagree), but it can still be quite a heroic game that emulates the heroes you see in the movies.

[Whill]

[Whill]

[garhkal]

[Solo4114]

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

[Solo4114]