PC deaths

[Kalibarr]

Hi folks

As a noob GM and player of this game - I'm still trying to get a feel for the gameplay and what is considered "normal" and what is not, etc.

On that note - I was wondering (roughly speaking of course) about how often a PC dies in your games? I realize that the death is mostly depedent on how the player plays, but probably it is even more so on you as a GM (i.e. you can fudge anything you want). So, basically, how common/uncommon are PC deaths in your games?

[vong]

i give em chances. they do one thing stupid, i bring em to the brink of death

next time, they ded

i might through in some warnings here and there to

the galaxy is a dangerous place. people die. then the people controlling thoes people take controle of a new person, then they die
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[Gry Sarth]

PC deaths are pretty rare in my games. Usually PCs only die in these circumstances:

- I notice the player no longer cares for his character, he's not enjoying playing him anymore or loking forward to his development. Then I will make it easier for this PC to die under normal circumstances, I won't drop a bolt from the sky, but I won't fudge rolls to save his skin and will be more picky about his actions.

- The player does something unbelievably stupid. Attacking a whole garrison of troopers in your underwear or some such thing, should result in death, or close to it.

- The player rolls unbelievably poorly on a critical roll. Then I can't fudge my way around it. If he was trying a very daring maneuver with a starfighter and rolls all 1s, he's toast.


In normal situations I'll try to avoid killing a player, because it usually hampers the overall story arc.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[PsiberDragon]

I'm pretty much with Gry on this one...

I generally tell my players: I'll never kill you for bad dice rolls (if I can avoid it), but stupidity is another story.

of course, a lot of people complain that that's not really "good" gaming...
then I point out that you'd be surprised what a body can go through and live...

Take, for instance a game a friend just ran last week... one of our group approached an NPC to get some information... what he didn't realize was that the NPC had been brainwashed. The NPC pulls out a grenade, pulls the pin and drops it at their feet. The NPC went up in a puff of red smoke. The PC lived... minus his legs.

The worse news for the player: his character (which he wanted to play) had a block against cybernetic ANYTHING. So... he's waiting for his cloned, vat grown legs before getting back in the action...
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"Love like you will die tomorrow. Hate like you will live forever." - Unknown

[vong]

but you have to walk the line on mortality. i had 1 character try to sneak up on 1000 stromtroopers. basic trench warfare, shoot anyhting that moves on that side of the field. he wanted crawl directely towards them to do somethign to them. he died

had another characther (a droid) what to go into space and into hyperspace OUTSIDE the ship. yes, we were on the planet, he gets on the outside and says im ok, and they take off. needless to say he didnt make it to space.

both these players were shocked that i killed there characters :/

either i have had a habbit of not killing characters, or they were being stupid. ill let you be the call
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[Firehawk0220]

[Cool McCool]

I rarely had PCs die.

When the dice showed that they did, I always offered the "Let the Dark Side save you" and give them a DSP to survive, maimed. (Or they could spend a Force Point.)
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Still funky after all these years

[Jamfke]

[Krayt]

Well... My PCs die pretty regularly. Usually stupid things like jumping INTO a fan, or killing people and getting the death penalty, or rolling INTO missiles. Oh well... At least I have fun describing the deaths
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"Your lack of faith disturbs me." - Vader

[garhkal]

[Pel]

It's been a while since a PC died in one of our games. I never kill them off for poor rolling; it's more fun to make up a plausible situation in which their roll doesn't kill them, but leads to a severe complication (e.g. hyperdrive malfunction, loss of limb, mission fails, NPC contact killed, etc.).

Dumb ideas OTOH, will get players killed every time. I like to give warnings like "You have a really bad feeling about this" or maybe an NPC intervenes and asked what they're thinking. Having said that, I do reward gutsy play and will never let the dice stand in the way of a great idea.
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Aha!

[Kayle Skolaris]

Characters rarely died back when I ran games. On the other hand, I had no problem whatsoever maiming them for stupidity. One group used to joke that they had a good two or three droids between them in cybernetic body parts.

[beaumont sebos]

[darthomer09]

Now I feel bad... I've been our groups most often GM for about 3 years and i must have killed off about... 15 or 20... Mostly cause me and my group was in experimental phases and we liked to create about 5 and 6 characters at a time (most were NPCs till one PC died)
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Rebel Uprisings

In Soviet Russia, RPG plays you!!

[Pel]

Sounds like Star Wars meets Paranoia!


Experimentation is good, especially if you're not sure what works for you.
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Aha!