10-12-2018, 01:22 PM | #31 | |||
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Killing PCs
Quote:
My Action games have a very low PC body count. Quote:
I've spent the last 2 weeks agonizing over 30ish points on a Character fro an arena game! (Okay, truthfully once I stopped just thinking about it and sat down and put points on the page, it was somewhere around 45 minutes of checking, and double checking, and triple checking to make I didn't miss something) The last character I made (including backstory) probably took about 2 hours all told (I'm not counting the character I've incrementally toyed with for the last year trying to get points to line up... we'll just ignore that bit of 'madness'). |
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10-12-2018, 02:06 PM | #32 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Killing PCs
Reduced randomness favors the stronger side, and also reduces the chance of suffering fatalities in a fight that you win. That is usually beneficial to the PCs, at least in combat heavy games (a combat heavy game where the PCs are regularly actually the weaker side is likely to be short), though it sometimes screws up plot device encounters that the PCs are supposed to lose or where a particular NPC is supposed to get away.
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10-12-2018, 02:50 PM | #33 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Killing PCs
Plot devices in my games tend to be significantly more powerful than PCs and possess two levels of Luck and two levels of Serendipity. Their minions tend to be equal to my PCs, so combat tends to be quick and heavy.
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10-12-2018, 02:58 PM | #34 |
Forum Pervert
(If you have to ask . . .) Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Somewhere high up.
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Re: Killing PCs
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10-12-2018, 03:12 PM | #35 | |
Forum Pervert
(If you have to ask . . .) Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Somewhere high up.
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Re: Killing PCs
Quote:
The actual stats for Asmodeus, the Cosmic Will of the Macroverse, Eessa, Mella, Mr. Smith, the Source, et al. simply don't matter. These are plot devices and, as such, only exist to fulfill a narrative element. In order for the players to do something that directly affects them in any meaningful way would take dedicated effort and could never just happen by chance. As Hand of Bobb stated (coming in, bearing my kitty): "If you give something stats the PCs will try to kill it." |
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10-12-2018, 04:15 PM | #36 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Nashville, TN
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Re: Killing PCs
It doesn't happen often.
It has happened on occasion, including that time when:
I'm sure that even after I matured somewhat as a GM and player death became rare that there have been others, but those stand out in my memory right now. At the power levels that I tend to play, enemies with the damage output where a one-shot kill on a regular hit is likely are very rare. Combine this with the system "settings" that I use, where players have many opportunities to use traits and impulse buys to avoid death, and death, while possible, is quite rare even without using the heavy hand of the GM.
__________________
I didn't realize who I was until I stopped being who I wasn't. Formerly known as Bookman- forum name changed 1/3/2018. |
10-12-2018, 04:18 PM | #37 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Killing PCs
Oh, there was one time I deliberately killed off an entire party of PCs, but it didn't really count -- they were on a vision quest to find out the details of a bad thing that happened years ago, so I had them playing historical analogs of their PCs. Who of course all died horribly, because it was already established in setting that no-one made it out.
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10-12-2018, 09:01 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Killing PCs
Quote:
__________________
Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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10-12-2018, 09:15 PM | #39 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Nashville, TN
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Re: Killing PCs
Those critical hit tables sure were fun, weren't they?
__________________
I didn't realize who I was until I stopped being who I wasn't. Formerly known as Bookman- forum name changed 1/3/2018. |
10-12-2018, 09:18 PM | #40 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Killing PCs
They certainly appealed to us at the time. "Foe's skeleton turned to jelly. Try a spatula."
__________________
Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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