PC mortality rate

[Quiller]

Confession time: I'm running some Mongoose flavoured Traveller at the moment (with flavour added from the Steve Jackson/Loren Wiseman Traveller, which is the best flavour text imho) and it's all going pretty darned smooth but for one thing.

Death. PC death to be more precise. And lots of it.

All my fault: my scenarios are obviously a bit too... "cinematic" for the vanilla rules... I throw the PC's at a couple of Zhodani commandos or a few pirates... and it's back to character rolling.

That's fair enough but it doesn't fit my style - I prefer to have re-occurring bad guys (no fun if none of the re-rolls have met the bad guy) and detailed back stories for characters (waste of effort if they end up a grease spot due to a Zhodani plasma weapon), and long running plots.

In short, I'd like my PC's to be a bit less disposable. Spycraft and Conan and Dark Heresy and Witch Hunter which we also play all have mechanisms for making PC's a cut above (in survivability terms at least) Joe Public.

I can solve this by fudging dice, but in my experience this just makes players reckless and removes dramatic tension - the GM's gonna pull our chestnuts out of the fire if we mess up kind of mentality.

So I was curious to see if anyone had a house rule they used for this that didn't wreck the Traveller "feel" or any other novel solution.

My own best idea so far is to introduce a "cortical stack" technology like in the Richard Morgan novels featuring Takeshi Kovacs - this would give players the ability to be "backed up" and re-sleeved (new body, clone or specialist, or... "spare") in the event of mishap... (quality of new body dependant on cash, or what your employer has in mind).

This also gives me lots plot hooks as per the novels - dual sleeving, re-sleeved by an employer who then has you over a barrel, specialist combat sleeves, mistaken ID because you're wearing someone else's sleeve, stack infection with virus, retrieving a comrades stack (messy job)... lots of possibilities etc.

However I'm hesitant as this is a game changing bit of tech - to remove would mean a re-boot I'm sure.

So any suggestions around "tuning" PC mortality would be gratefully received.

 

[rust]

The easiest way to handle the problem obviously would be to choose a
somewhat less dangerous opposition for the player characters.

To make the characters tough enough to take no serious risk during a
fight against well armed opponents would also be a way to reduce the
"Traveller feeling", because a high lethality of combat is a typical part
of Traveller.

 

[Corvus]

I was a player in a mercenary-based Traveller campaign set during the Fifth Frontier War. The GM was excellent and didn't hold anything back; player mortality was high and TPKs not unknown.

The way he handled it was for every player to run multiple characters, typically 2 mercs and a crewmember, but we only played one character at a time. All the characters were part of the same company, so everyone knew the same things about the campaign.

This was my favorite Traveller campaign ever. It was set up so we only played the "fun" parts; we would play the crew trying to land under fire at a contested starport, then the grunts trying to take it. We never had all our characters at threat at the same time, but if your character bought it you would have to roll up a new one while the rest of the group finished the adventure.

 

[BP]

I've been a fan of the multiple characters per player method - I like what Corvus mentioned about only one at a time - that makes it easier.

I first did this to get players away from the 'Level 18 multi-resurrected Monk' mentality carried over from D&D. Players lost their obsessive attachment to any one player (and Traveller character generation was always a hit anyway - the whole first session would be spent generating several characters per player).

Another method - tech 'em up. Instead of making the players Superman or The Incredible Hulk - make them Iron Man or Batman. Traveller's the perfect venue for giving your characters an edge with technology their opponents lack. An average Joe doesn't really stand a chance against a major city's law enforcement - but put him in a tank and well the story changes (ok - I say that on some TV show once).

Some handy battle dress or extra powerful grenades - say in that box they just scampered behind for cover...

I'm not saying to make it too easy - just make it harder to die is all. Be creative - so that Battle Dress saved the day - only problem the character didn't know it had a power problem - now they gotta get him outta there (or carry him back to the ship or a machine shop).

And brush up on the med tech - so that character lost a few limbs and was given up for dead - or maybe he was dead, but if a cyroberth is handy maybe some not to distant research facility can bring him back... (with a few augmentations). Perhaps an observant Patron will foot the bill - for services rendered that is...

And when your characters are out manned and out gunned - then its time to reflect that in their opponents' over-confidence (ok - go watch Die Hard one more time).

 

[sergeant_x]

I like the more realistic play and character mortality is part of that.

But if you and your players like the "cinematic" play, you can split the difference by modifying difficulties based on the dramatic context.

The basic idea is that under most circumstances, the hardline Traveller rules hold. But in climactic situations, difficulties are lowered relative to the dramatic outcome desired. I guess it's just a formalization of "fudging".

So, when the players run up against the Feds in a typical situation, for example, they'd better tread lightly - their outgunned and will go down in flames if they get out of line. But if they're up against a crooked sector governor (who's falsely imprisoned the hero's love interest, let's say), the die rolls tend to fall in the direction of the PCs - ie the difficulties are lowered for dramatically appropriate actions that might ordinarily be foolhardy.

You can be overt about, announcing changes in "DramCon" levels, or keep the players guessing. But they should feel a bit freer to take chances when it's heroic, noble, exciting, or whatever fits the spirit of your campaign.

"Luck" or "Drama" points could be another way to handle it, but that makes for a bit more bookkeeping.

 

[Golan2072]

Try setting things up so that clever players can get significant tactical advantages, either by planning and intelligence or by using terrain. Alternatively, set the adventure in a way which allows stealth or deception (and thus avoiding combat unless absolutely necessary).

Also, allow - even encourage - players to retreat when the opposition is overwhelming.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

If you don't want them to die in combat, make the armour better.

Either increase the value of existing armour or add new armour types.

 

[kristof65]

While I personally like the added lethality, I can understand when things spiral out of control, and PCs get killed just plain due to the dice. I much prefer that PCs die because of their actions (or lack thereof) rather than the fact that the dice dictate it.

Now, that said, I think the best way to handle it is to borrow a concept from the Warhammer Fantasy RPG - Fate Points:

Fate Points: This characteristic represents luck and, to a certain extent, your character's destiny. Fate Points can be used to avoid certain death.

A Fate point can be expended whenever a character is about to die-in combat, through traps or accidents, as a result of poison or disease, or in any other circumstances. Instead of dying, the character expends a Fate Point and then the GM has to devise some way of ensuring the PC survives.

Most PCs will only have 1 or 2 Fate Points, and it's up to the GM to award them. When I ran WFRP, basically, I'd try and keep most of the the PCs having 1 FP most of the time - this would allow some recklessness on the PCs part, but not repeated recklessness - because when they used up that Fate Point, they weren't getting another one until I deemed they earned it.

 

[hdan]

I think the best way to handle it is to borrow a concept from the Warhammer Fantasy RPG - Fate Points

I like this idea. It gives a good way for a more action-oriented game to keep the PCs alive while still "costing" them a little when things go wrong.

If the character is killed, they can blow an FP to reduce the damage to a knockout.

I'd probably go for a simple "everyone gets one FP per session" or "everyone recharges their FP when the ship jumps" approach, though it might be fun to hand out FPs for missions completed, and not have them recharge.

Personally, I might be inclined to allow a character to die and have the player roll up a new one while the rest of the group finished the scene. Then, when they (presumably) go to find a new party member, the new character joins up. I don't go for a lot of character advancement (Trav and XP don't mix in my head), and a new Trav character can be even more capable than a long-time character, though likely they won't have as many neat toys.

However, I understand that people get very attached to their characters and would leave my game if I did that sort of thing too often. :wink:

 

[kristof65]

I'd probably go for a simple "everyone gets one FP per session" or "everyone recharges their FP when the ship jumps" approach, though it might be fun to hand out FPs for missions completed, and not have them recharge.

The thing about Fate Points is that they should be rare. They should really be the player's emergency backup - that thing that exists to save their butt when they really, really need it. They should to know they've spent it, and at what cost. It's essentially the same thing as the GM saying "Ok, I won't kill you, even though I should" however, by tying it to a specific "attribute" that the player knows about, it doesn't encourage that attitude of "oh, the GM won't kill me." Because the player knows the GM will, and that only that Fate point is there to save them. Squander that, and you're a lot closer to dying.

In WFRP, I'd only give out an FP for something truly unique or heroic and/or at the end of a specific mission. Mostly I tied it to really cool RP moments in order to encourage role-playing. If a PC had more than 2 FPs banked, I wouldn't award them one - because I learned the hardway that if a PC has too many banked, they'll use them to cheat death when its most inconvenient for the GM.

Likewise, I had no fear of leaving a PC with 0 Fate Points. Having nothing to fall back on naturally makes their player more cautious, and it somewhat reflects "reality" - those people who come closest to death often live very carefully for a time afterwards. Players with 0 Fate Points left would not only try very carefully to keep their PCs safe, but to do things that would get them an FP as a reward, so they had their backup in place again.

 

[Maccat]

Personally I'm a bit dismayed at the work-ups of some of the weaponry available as regards the lethality. Haveing the END get hit first regardless seems to overly penalize low-end characters. Armor also seems to be real high levels and have a *dramatic* effect on damage (people saying batman/ironman em up or get better armor or battledress etc same point to my mind!)

Because of all that it either seems to devolve to characters immune to things outright or offed like a flamed moth. Add in stuff like aim to kill and it goes more flamey moth. All that aside, if someone goes shooting at their group, they're doing that: fundamentally as cool-sounding or whatever, it doesn't really matter *at all* *what* they're being shot at with. If the badda-badda of autofire does it, then have it be the light caliber not as much damage of it. Instead of the highest tech bestest sniper rifle they're being shot at with, why not just a blippy carbine say? All told maybe they just need a lil better armor to do better. Then again if they're charging into banks or military bases shooting the town up, lethal sounds what any sane person would expect comin their way lol

 

[saundby]

Make it so that the NPCs don't want to kill them so much.

Cops want to neutralize and capture, not kill.
Bad guys want to use them somehow.

Throw them from a frying pan into a fire rather than setting things up in a situation where if they oppose the other side, they die.

And make it really nasty. Afterward, they may want that character to die.
:twisted:

Or, make it like the Mounties in the movie The Grey Fox. When one of the gang members opens fire on the Mounties, they shoot him to disable, then drag him off saying "You fool, what were you thinking? You could have got yourself killed!"

 

[Paladin]

• stick them on a high law - no guns allowed planet for a time or two and see what happens. Get them in the mindset of dealing with things in other methods.
• Up the consequences of a shootout. If a raging gun battle were to happen in civilian areas would the authorities automatically assume the PCs are the good guys? Would they sweep in check the bodies and give the players a free pass? Would weapons/ships be impounded/arrests be made? This can get bogged down in real-world procedure so don't take it too far, but fear of more than death can be powerful.
• Have one of the stray shots from the PCs hit and possibly kill an innocent kid, civilian or NPC. Let them deal with the guilt (if they even feel any)/consequences.
• If all else fails, keep your extra recordsheets in a folder and in a few months pull from the pool and change the name. :wink:

 

[Madarin Dude]

First remind them that this is not D&D and try to keep combat to where it is necessary not in large quantities.

1.Use the rules to your advantage players go unconscious that is what happens they are not dead and you can use a plot device or have the players help their wounded.

2. Have the players roll up more than one character so you can easily have a planetside group and a shipboard group.So they will have a remaining character and a new one can come online when the game permits. Traveller characters are already experienced so it will not be as big a loss as other systems.

3. You can use fate points luck or whatever you come up with to force a reroll to keep things going.

Having characters that are able to die makes the game different and forces the players to play different. This is what makes traveller traveller.

 

[Jame Rowe]

If you don't want them to die in combat, make the armour better.

Either increase the value of existing armour or add new armour types.

This is something that I've done when I've run MGT (I used Golan's armor rules).

Though as a side note, my Traveller group went about six years without any deaths at all, and then we had three deaths in as many sessions (this year). And one of those deaths was an engineering accident...

 

[iainjcoleman]

In a straight-up firefight with reasonably well-matched opposition, the PCs can expect to take some casualties.

But straight-up firefights only happen when somebody screws up.

If you want to adjust the lethality level without changing the game mechanics, make the opposition a bit less tactically clever than the players - end encourage the players to work on smarter tactics themselves.

Also, remember that hardly anyone fights to the death. If the opposition start taking casualties, they are likely to withdraw or surrender. The PCs should also be allowed to do likewise - and with prompt trauma care, even seriously wounded PCs should be able to survive.

 

[BP]

Yeah - killing people - since when did that get fun...

I mean, you can kill someone in a fair fight... or if you think they're gonna start a fair fight, or if they're bother'n ya, or if there's a woman involved, or you're getting paid -

Mostly when you're getting paid!
Serenity Now!

 

[sergeant_x]

"MUST.... HAVE.... MORE.... FIREFLY!!!!!"

You'd think the withdrawal pains would fade after seven years....

 

[The Chef]

nope the pain will never go,

noone left serenity valley