WHo is in charge of the character sheet?

[garhkal]

OK. I did this in a few other places..

Ok. Situation came up a few times, mostly for ad&d, but has come up once for a SW game..

Say a character gets whacked reall bad, and dies. BUt later on in the session, he remembers something on his sheet that he 'was wearing' (it was on his equipment list) or some skill/power he has, that would have 'saved the day' for him (like a bonus, or a few more CPs)....

A) would he still be dead, as he failed to remember at the time?
B) would you take the combat back to when he fell?
c) What about if it was not in the same session, but the next one?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Boomer]

As a general rule of thumb, handle all character deaths DELICATELY. Pause, take a quick breath, and check to see if there wasn't a way to save the character BEFORE he is declared finally dead.

If he died from a bad choice (Forgot to use my...) whoop-de-doo. He is dead.
But if he died because he forgot about something innate, that should have kicked in during the roll for his death, something his character wouldn't have needed to think about even, than yeah, he could have lived. He forgot the space suits self-sealing ability. He forgot to roll the armor. He forgot that medicine still in his veins from earlier, keeping him at mortally wounded for a while longer so maybe he can be saved.
Always review the death so that you are SURE he died. I hate finding out later he shouldn't have.
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[KageRyu]

I would say it also has to do with how experienced the Player himself is (not his character). If he is new to roleplaying, then it is the GM's moral obligation to help guide him along in learning the game system, the game, and how to roleplay in general, which means the GM should help remind him of things his character has or can do.
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"There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra

[Sabre]

I think it's nice of the GM to remind the player of their options, but ultimately it is the player's job to play their character, and if their decisions lead to the death of the character, that's that. I would never rewind time more than one roll to accomodate a player changing their mind about using CP or adding their armor rating or using an item that might have affected the outcome.

[Volar the Healer]

It depends on whether I like the character or not. If he's cool and the players like him, I'd probably allow him to be found alive by the Imperials (so he needs to be rescued). If the character is not cool / disruptive / difficult then too bad.

Another thing I look at is how did the character treat his enemies? If he treated prisoners honorably and helped everyone then he'll probably get another chance. If he's the type to shoot the Imperials again "just to make sure" then he's outta there.

What he sows is what he reaps.
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Know Jesus, Know Peace.
No Jesus, No Peace

[garhkal]

Hm volar. Did not even look at that angle....
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Kehlin Yew]

Both, but a little more towards the player, player gains skill, writes personal notes, and all that good stuff, but if necessary, the gm can take it over

[garhkal]

Well.. I have had a few threads of old in the HR and OR sections being resurrected.. so i felt it was time for the gm side to get some loving.

This one got a lot of votes, but not many comments..

So for all our new folk since 05, what's your feelings?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Quetzacotl]

To Answer your question in the first Post:

That depends.

If he realizes this shortly after "dying", there would be no problem, the "heart suddenly starts to beat again" or something like this. He still went down (even if the forgotten ability would have prevented that), but he's still alive.

If he had a skill that he could have used in order to prevent the damage... depends.

In our Groups, you really only die if you do something stupid or want to die. I once died when we attacked a Magician Akademy (it was overrun by animals that were controlled by a Mage that was overwhelmed by a demonic artifact which was used to control the animals) and in the Library some sabertooth attacked us. Unfortunately, the dice decided that I was the one being attack and I also had a lot of bad luck with that. I died in the thrid round without anyone beng able to do anything because they were fighting the sabertooth' as well.
The GM said that if I wanted to still play the character, so he had something in mind how i either resurrected or didn't die do begin with.

So, in conclusion:
The Player is mostly responsible, but the GM always should have an eye on the character. If "the death" hasn't happened to long ago, the player should get the opportunity to "come back" if he just forgot a skill (because the character probably wouldn't have forgotten the skill).

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p.s. I don't know but I have the feeling that I'm torturing the english language here by mixing up the tenses alot. So sorry for that ^^

[Tupteq]

All depends. I'm always trying to help player to survive at the moment of his possible death, especially when I know something that player should also know, but he doesn't remember in the moment. Few times I didn't do this and later players told me that it wasn't fair.

If action was put forward, then I wouldn't "rewind" action back (at least not in SW RPG). If possible, I'd try to patch up the story using tricks from soap operas: "everyone thought you are dead because your body entered in deep coma", "defibrillator worked and, miraculously, 15 minutes of clinical death didn't damage your brain" etc.

In the future I'll also take into account Volar's notes - death treats you the same way you treat others

[DougRed4]

I voted that it's the responsibility of both, but mostly the player's.

I would allow the character to live, but if it had happened a bit ago I'd more likely have him barely alive, rather than retconning or trying to go back multiple turns.

I think in most cases everyone at the table would try - at the time of death - to figure out anything that could possibly help to keep them alive.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Quetzacotl]

[Raven Redstar]

As a GM, I have begun keeping copies of character sheets of my players, more as a way to dissuade people from "pulling a fast one" on me. Not long ago I gamed with someone who had the nasty habit of making minor alterations on their character sheet between gaming sessions. The changes were generally minor and hard to spot, but it encouraged me for more accurate record keeping of skill levels, cash, and CP/FP.

So, I keep a document on my computer and hosted on my google docs to keep track, if someone does something fishy, if the character sheet handed to me doesn't match with what I have on file, we have a problem. For the most part, players knowing that I keep a copy of the character has been effective. Not to mention it's nice if someone loses their sheet, has a cat pee on it, or dog eat it, etc...

So, to answer your question; I think it's a shared responsibility in keeping track of a character sheet, but the GM is really the person who should be a little more responsible for knowing what the players skills, gear, money, character points, and force points are at, maybe not at all times, but most of the time.

On the subject of death, I agree with Boomer to a degree. You should take a quick breath and look at the situation from all angles. There's no reason to speed through what may be a fatal situation, especially for a beloved character. If the player doesn't care, then it's not as big a deal.

I like Volar's point about how the player treated his enemies, and I would agree to a point. But, death often times is way too quick and easy a punishment. For me, the imperials especially would resuscitate the man and put him through ISB brain washing. Much better to have someone with no mercy killing other rebels than imperials, let's re-purpose him to a more useful role.

So, if the player did those kinds of things, I might consider bringing the player back as an NPC bent on vengeance against the crew that left him to die. He might be convinced that they didn't even bother to check and see if he was alive or not, and instead he was sent to some imperial hell hole and tortured.

I think it makes for good drama.
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RR
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[Volar the Healer]

I like Raven Redstar's idea of bringing back PCs as enemy NPCs, but I only do that with characters who've fallen to the dark side. When the team's sniper fell to the dark side, THAT was a tough NPC. But, I saw to it he always killed the new characters being played by the player who let him fall, first. This was a personal lesson to the player why you don't want your PCs to fall.

But, the question related to an error on the part of a (possibly new) player. I would not inflict such torment for an error.
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Know Jesus, Know Peace.
No Jesus, No Peace

[Whill]

The record-keeping of the character sheet itself? I like to possess the official copies of the character sheets but each player has his own copy too. After the game session we reconcile the two copies to make sure we are all on the same page for any changes.

As far as there being something written on the character sheet which the player is forgetting that might save the character from death, I can't say that has ever happened much. In general I'm not one to remind players of things written down but I probably would drop a hint if it was truly a matter of life or death. I do not like to rewind and have "do overs".
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