Subject:
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Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Tue, 4 Jun 2002 19:33:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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3571 times
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"J.D. Forinash" wrote:
> It's not that simple... the GM _has_ to fudge things to keep PCs alive.
> If the party is in the warp core engine room and someone chucks in a big
> ol' grenade, there's two choices-- someone throws himself on it and becomes
> goo, or nobody does so and the entire ship becomes goo. There's no solution
> to this problem that keeps PCs alive. It's nothing they did that got them
> there. There's a little heroism in throwing one's self on the grenade, but
> otherwise, it's not a heroic death, it's not a punishment for stupid player
> actions, it's just dead people.
<snip>
> Given that no battle plan ever survives contact with the player characters,
> I think GMing _is_ fudging. :) This doesn't mean that you can't kill a PC
> once in a while if people are being morons, or if it's a great heroic
> death, but you do have to be flexible to get the story where it needs to
> go. And, of course, there's the flip side to this: Sometimes it's worse
> _not_ to kill the PC. :) When the PCs run for the Bridge, instead, having
> ignored the fact that mission Intel already told them the warp core can't be
> shut down from there, you can simply have the bridge seal off and eject from
> the ship as an escape pod when the shop blows. Congratulations, Marine,
> you're now busted to private and scraping fleebnorks off the hull. :)
This sounds to me like a scenario which isn't designed correctly for the
tone of the campaign the GM wants to run. I also question the bit: "but
you do have to be flexible to get the story where it needs to go." To me
that sounds like you're forcing the story in a particular direction.
Why?
Some thoughts on how to better set up this scenario:
- Give the PCs enough intel to know that the enemy is liable to try and
blow the ship rather than let it be captured. Make sure they have some
information on the most common ways to do so.
- Make it take more than a well placed grenade to blow a ship. If
personal combat action is a common thing on board ships, one would tend
to assume the ships aren't too vulnerable to such weapons.
I think it's reasonable to make PCs THINK. Some past situations where
I've been kind of unforgiving:
- high powered campaign, PCs had a bunch of wishes, running with
miniatures for the first time, player forcefully says: "I wish I was
here." as he slams his finger down on the table (gee, looks to me like
that's in solid rock...) Had the player said "I wish I was someplace
near here." and sort of waved his finger to indicate the general area, I
would have been forgiving. In this instance, I left the PC stunned on
the Astral plane, to be later rescued by some other players (the game
was my first run at a convention, with something like 10 players when I
had never run with more than like 3 or 4).
- another high powered campaign (running White Plume Mountain for what
it's worth). PC decides to shapechange into a ancient huge red dragon in
a 10' wide corridor. Another player says, I wonder if that will fit. PC
decides to do it anyway. Squish. I forget how many characters he
killed...
Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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| (...) Because I'd like my players to be happy. I could instead, decide about how long it takes for a saboteur to blow up the ship, and then after fifteen minutes of game time have passed, say, "The walls of the ship glow white-hot and then you don't (...) (22 years ago, 6-Jun-02, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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| (...) It's not that simple... the GM _has_ to fudge things to keep PCs alive. If the party is in the warp core engine room and someone chucks in a big ol' grenade, there's two choices-- someone throws himself on it and becomes goo, or nobody does so (...) (22 years ago, 4-Jun-02, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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