Forums of the Megaverse®

The other night I ran my game and 3 PC's "died." I quote for reasons I'll explain in a moment. To sum up the situation, they took a task onto themselves that didn't involve any goading from me. In fact, I was kind of hoping they wouldn't do it, as the job was way too hard. Every once in a while I think it's fine to demonstrate that though the PC's might be the characters driving the story, they aren't really all powerful and that accomplishing certain tasks is just beyond them.

Well, they surprised me. They went into a real #@$%storm and only 4 of their party were taken down, three of which were player characters. I expected everyone to die, and die pretty fast.

While they aren't out of the woods yet, I'll explain the quotes as I'm curious what you guys think of how I handle PC death for SDC vs MDC and if you have other suggestions, I'm game.

First, when something is reduced to 0 HP/SDC, i tend to follow the negative PE rule. As in, if you take damage past 0 equal to your physical endurance, you're just done. However, since MDC is a bit of a wonky and cruel thing, my nice guy side comes out and I count MDC as HP for the purposes of rolling coma/death.

Example, someone was in power armor, it was destroyed, but as luck would have it the damage wasn't over the remaining armor. They were trapped by a powered down suit, trying to get the ejection system to work when an enemy came up and stabbed them in the chest with a vibro blade. This is a kill, obviously. the mega-damage spells your doom. Though since the "damage" in SDC/HP didn't exceed their PE score, I allowed them to save. A stab is one thing. Another PC was hit by 30mm autocannon fire at point blank range. Their body was torn to shreds and was basically a pulpy mess. They were dead, no save possible.

The third faced a similar fate to the first. Knife broke his helmet armor and the remaining damage killed him. His face will be mangled permanently if he survives, but he gets a chance to live.

Anyway, what's your guys take? Too nice? Ideas to handle it differently?

The ones you let live should have a chance at revenge the guy who died deserves a munchy survive Damn near anything character.

Well...they kind of charged into this themselves...rewarding people for Dumb decisions seems counterproductive.

Alrik Vas wrote:The other night I ran my game and 3 PC's "died." I quote for reasons I'll explain in a moment. To sum up the situation, they took a task onto themselves that didn't involve any goading from me. In fact, I was kind of hoping they wouldn't do it, as the job was way too hard. Every once in a while I think it's fine to demonstrate that though the PC's might be the characters driving the story, they aren't really all powerful and that accomplishing certain tasks is just beyond them.

Well, they surprised me. They went into a real #@$%storm and only 4 of their party were taken down, three of which were player characters. I expected everyone to die, and die pretty fast.

While they aren't out of the woods yet, I'll explain the quotes as I'm curious what you guys think of how I handle PC death for SDC vs MDC and if you have other suggestions, I'm game.

First, when something is reduced to 0 HP/SDC, i tend to follow the negative PE rule. As in, if you take damage past 0 equal to your physical endurance, you're just done. However, since MDC is a bit of a wonky and cruel thing, my nice guy side comes out and I count MDC as HP for the purposes of rolling coma/death.

Example, someone was in power armor, it was destroyed, but as luck would have it the damage wasn't over the remaining armor. They were trapped by a powered down suit, trying to get the ejection system to work when an enemy came up and stabbed them in the chest with a vibro blade. This is a kill, obviously. the mega-damage spells your doom. Though since the "damage" in SDC/HP didn't exceed their PE score, I allowed them to save. A stab is one thing. Another PC was hit by 30mm autocannon fire at point blank range. Their body was torn to shreds and was basically a pulpy mess. They were dead, no save possible.

The third faced a similar fate to the first. Knife broke his helmet armor and the remaining damage killed him. His face will be mangled permanently if he survives, but he gets a chance to live.

Anyway, what's your guys take? Too nice? Ideas to handle it differently?

Sounds about right. Rifts Ultimate page 358/359 has updated rules for how SDC characters can survive a mega damage hit with grevious injury (provided the attack didn't vaporize them or blow them to bits completely of course). There's a nice table there for people who might survive to have to live with as reminders.

Alrik Vas wrote:Well...they kind of charged into this themselves...rewarding people for Dumb decisions seems counterproductive.

Well I've killed a party... twice... as a player...

In hindsight my actions may have been il conceived, and outright dumb decisions but the outcome was neither a reward nor a punishment it just was. Unless you actively try to kill.year players...

I just put stuff in their way, I don't wait until they go to the bathroom to summon demons.

Though its a thought.

See you could have saved them, PowerSurge crossover. Lol

You know, I've been thinking a crossover with old meat slab and Stan the Nihilist (ancient aged chiang-ku Dragon) would be pretty hilarious.

I save -6 horror factor vs John Goodman.

"Mark it ZERO!!!"

Think you made a decent decision in the face of players jumping into a bad situation. I too suffer from Nice Guy syndrome and rarely have player deaths because I allow my players to player more robust characters. That way, if they get in over their heads, they are less likely to die. Of course there are down sides to that as well but I can live with it. Question for my fellow GM's. How do you keep it tough but fair to the players? Do you worry about fair or just run the game?

Leo H wrote:Think you made a decent decision in the face of players jumping into a bad situation. I too suffer from Nice Guy syndrome and rarely have player deaths because I allow my players to player more robust characters. That way, if they get in over their heads, they are less likely to die. Of course there are down sides to that as well but I can live with it. Question for my fellow GM's. How do you keep it tough but fair to the players? Do you worry about fair or just run the game?

My MAIN concern is whether not they are having fun. When I see their eyes light up in glee, grown ass men, as they blow things to smithereens, I generally feel like my mission is accomplished. That said, I think there are a lot of ways to make the game harder. Hell, throw a group of gargoyles at them and go to town. Modify creatures to do more damage. Push them to use their skills a lot. Give them some sticky RP situations. Maybe don't even think of it as harder, so much as keeping things interesting.

I think as GM's we should be the PC's biggest fans. I WANT them to be the heroes, but I intend to make them work for it. One guy in our group just finished a D&D campaign where he rolled 3 characters in like two months. Whereas the fantasy campaign my group is wrapping up now are the same characters after a year of gaming, and they have said at times that the game is too hard. To which I say, "You cry like a mule, Christian. You are still alive."

Nekira Sudacne wrote:

Alrik Vas wrote:The other night I ran my game and 3 PC's "died." I quote for reasons I'll explain in a moment. To sum up the situation, they took a task onto themselves that didn't involve any goading from me. In fact, I was kind of hoping they wouldn't do it, as the job was way too hard. Every once in a while I think it's fine to demonstrate that though the PC's might be the characters driving the story, they aren't really all powerful and that accomplishing certain tasks is just beyond them.

Well, they surprised me. They went into a real #@$%storm and only 4 of their party were taken down, three of which were player characters. I expected everyone to die, and die pretty fast.

While they aren't out of the woods yet, I'll explain the quotes as I'm curious what you guys think of how I handle PC death for SDC vs MDC and if you have other suggestions, I'm game.

First, when something is reduced to 0 HP/SDC, i tend to follow the negative PE rule. As in, if you take damage past 0 equal to your physical endurance, you're just done. However, since MDC is a bit of a wonky and cruel thing, my nice guy side comes out and I count MDC as HP for the purposes of rolling coma/death.

Example, someone was in power armor, it was destroyed, but as luck would have it the damage wasn't over the remaining armor. They were trapped by a powered down suit, trying to get the ejection system to work when an enemy came up and stabbed them in the chest with a vibro blade. This is a kill, obviously. the mega-damage spells your doom. Though since the "damage" in SDC/HP didn't exceed their PE score, I allowed them to save. A stab is one thing. Another PC was hit by 30mm autocannon fire at point blank range. Their body was torn to shreds and was basically a pulpy mess. They were dead, no save possible.

The third faced a similar fate to the first. Knife broke his helmet armor and the remaining damage killed him. His face will be mangled permanently if he survives, but he gets a chance to live.

Anyway, what's your guys take? Too nice? Ideas to handle it differently?

Sounds about right. Rifts Ultimate page 358/359 has updated rules for how SDC characters can survive a mega damage hit with grevious injury (provided the attack didn't vaporize them or blow them to bits completely of course). There's a nice table there for people who might survive to have to live with as reminders.

What I do is if they take damage beyond their MDC, I just say the armor "explodes" into bits and they are left exposed.

I don't like that, only because the armor exploding could kill the guy inside anyway.

Alrik Vas wrote:I don't like that, only because the armor exploding could kill the guy inside anyway.

A better choice of words might be that it is too damaged to wear and sort of falls apart.

While that is true, I play with SDC damage through armor anyway.

1d8 SDC to the wearer per 10 MD dealt. Critical hits double this as usual. It's half to someone in power armor, targets inside giant robots and vehicles are only effected in special cases.

There are instances where you might kill a pilot from trauma through armor or power armor before it's actually destroyed, which given the power of rifts weapons, kind of makes sense.