Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Shadowjack on <12-03-15/0434:20>
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To begin, I should note that this discussion can apply to Shadowrun but is not exclusive to Shadowrun. PC death is a volatile topic and most people stand firmly on one side of the fence. PC's having potential to die adds tension to the game and makes decisions matter, risk versus reward is fiercely enforced. Ideally, the GM will be able to plot out an excellent campaign and finish with an exciting conclusion. The best chance to reach that conclusion is if the entire party survives up until that point. A skilled GM examines the background, personality, stats, gear, etc of each PC and plans his campaign out accordingly, likely building up various relevant story elements to reach the most dramatic conclusion possible. Each time a PC dies, a part of the ultimate story is low with them and the GM must now adapt to keep the quality of his campaign intact, likely tweaking things based on whatever new PC took the place of the deceased. The further you are into a campaign, the less likely the GM will be able to match the quality of his original plan because inveitably very fresh characters don't have a lot of time to get established over a short span of time near the conclusion. Because of that, the player is likely not going to enjoy the second character as much as the first, nor will the group or the GM. The GM must now to decide if he should end his campaign when he originally planned to or make changes to allow for the new PC to have sufficient time to be incorporated into the story in a manner that will please the entire table.
Sometimes a player is very attached to his character. He took the time to draw a full color portrait, write 10 pages of background, outline his entire wardrobe, spend his money meticulously and so on, everything was perfect and the player is deeply involved in his character. Most of the time when this kind of character dies the player will not have a good experience. This of course varies greatly from person to person but in my experience PC death has caused a lot of inner table conflict and soured the mood of the game, often resulting in the campaign dissipating in the process. Ideally, a PC that does die will at least die in a manner which is saitsfactory but many times in gaming that will not be the case, the circumstances of the death will be disappointing. However, some deaths can be quite memorable and enjoyable although I would wager that this is not likely. Most games have some sort of rule that allows a PC to survive, whether it be burning Edge, making stabilization rolls, spending a Fate point, a resurrection spell, and so on. These methods have value but ultimately I wonder if such an extreme event should be governed by random chance. If a player is going to become very upset, thus no longer having fun, is it really a good idea to kill his character? Additionally, if the GM has a wonderful conclusion to his campaign in mind and he has been plotting towards it for months, is it a good idea to allow a PC to die if it is detrimental to the story? These are difficulty questions to answer.
On one hand, I value realism, I value grit. Death is a dramatic event, one that is sure to spark an emotional response. It is an interesting avenue to explore but at the end of the road you will usually reach a dead end. Handling PC death requires maturity but certain people simply do not enjoy having their character die under any circumstances, yet we will hope that anyone could sit at the table and have an excellent time, after all, these are games we're playing and intended to be an escape from real life. Going back to realism, having PC's never die has a strange feeling attached to it. Many gaming groups will say things like "In over 10 years of gaming together there has never been a PC death in our group." In almost any system, if you play enough sessions, eventually someone is going to die by the rules. Many GM's feel pity for their players and reach into their bag of tricks to bend the rules and allow the PC to live. Some players find this apalling and insist on maintaining the integrity of the dice and the rules. Others place a higher value on the enjoyment of the game and favor the story over the realism. The variation in opinions is vast.
Looking back over the 2 decades I've spent roleplaying, the most enjoyable campaigns I recall were the ones which had no PC deaths. The campaigns that had PC deaths often did not get finished and almost always had some degree of bitter feelings. I have killed PC's, my PC's have been killed, and though it was been a rare occurence, it is something I remain unsure about. In my early to mid years of roleplaying I had a tendancy to fudge dice rolls and keep PC's alive. In my recent years I transitioned to a more brutal style and allow for PC death though I never intentionally sought out to make it happen. But since yesterday I've been thinking a lot about this topic and whether or not it is a good idea to kill PC's. I believe that losing battle is always going to be a consequence in itself, whether you are fired, fail to collect your rewards, have some or all of your gear pilfered, sustain an injury or disease, lose your humanity, face imprisonment, etc. The list of possibilities are exhaustive and surely enough for the GM to make his game feel brutal without needing to kill a PC. But of course, realism is knocking on the door with a heavy fist. In many cases it would make sense for someone, or everyone, to die. While I believe realism is important, I do think it should take a back seat to the story. If there is any reason to justify the group staying alive, I think it's a good thing. Real life already gets in the way of finishing campaigns as it is. People come and go, get sick, have health troubles, need to work over time or move to another city, there are so many barriers we must face as role players, is it a good idea to add major complications such as PC death? This could surely kill the interest of your game and absolutely prove to be detrimental to your story.
Speaking more specifically about Shadowrun, we have the option to burn Edge. This rule allows PC's to stay alive in the majority of cases, and while it feels like it is overly generous, it does drive the story extremely effectively. The rules of Shadowrun are brutal, you can easily die, but this particular rule likely means that you won't. There are debates about the truth of that statement but I have noticed that the majority of groups I've witnessed only rarely, or sometimes never, have a PC death. One thing I dislike about this rule though is that it punishes high Edge PC's since they're effectively losing more Karma than a low Edge PC any time they burn Edge. The only time this is not the case is when someone is running out of Edge, but most likely they will be able to earn enough Karma to maintain at least one point of Edge and stay alive. This leads me to another point which I find unfortunate. When we make a character we must decide what will be most fun, however, someone who plays a 'tanky' character is more likely to live than a physically weaker character. While that is realistic it strikes me as unfair and disappointing. The physically weaker character will likely need to burn more Edge to stay alive, which is another reason I find this rule to be fairly inadequate.
Then I began to think about whether or not burning Edge is fun. It is realistic (in a sense) but nobody enjoys going backwards in Karma, especially a large chunk of Karma that represents potentially months of playing. I began to think it might be better to allow a PC to avoid death by instead gaining a Negative Quality. That way they are punished but now qutie going backwards, plus I have more control over the outcome. After that I began to think about the idea of not having any harsh consequences of this kind and instead focusing on consequences such as failing to complete the run, gaining Notoriety, incurring expenses from bodily damage or gear damage, losing honor or face, having gear stolen, and so on. This way the story moves forward and everyone should be happy.
One final note, which is a bit off topic, is the idea of losing gear. Having things stolen is an obvious consequence to being knocked unconscious. Of course the ganger would take your Fairlight Excalibur. But that item represents months or even a year or playing and probably will make the player very unhappy. A nother example is the Unarmed Melee Adept vs the Drone Rigger. Both runnes lose a fight together, the Adept loses his fancy suit while the Drone Rigger loses 200,000 nuyen worth of equipment. The adept is not too concerned because he can easily buy another suit, but the Drone Rigger lost a huge chunk of his power from the decisions he made during character creation. The amount of punishment for the loss was so high that he is practically screwed unless the GM finds a way to 'fix it'. So let me ask you, how do you handle theft? Do you dance around it and find other solutions or do you focus on realism and let the rules and balance of the game be damned?
Thank you very much for reading, any insight is much appreciated.
P.s: This is too long to proof read. I am sorry if there are typos :)
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It depends.
Usually in my games a character only dies if he didn't make the effort to prevent it.
Shadowrun especially has a number of fail saves: Overflow, Edge Rerolls, Edge Burning and if absolutely necessary a spontaneous life pact to a sinister spirit are all elements that enable a GM to make dying a conscious player choice.
Than there is the type of game: A tightly woven story usually will benefit more from an unchanging cast. A pink mohawk game works as well as a paranoia game where hilarious PC deaths are part of the general fun.
I used to be a player who liked to change characters a lot, trying out lots of different character concepts. But after almost 20 years of gaming I now have certain favorite concepts I feel very comfortable with playing and which I try to keep alive however I can - unless its a heroic sacrifice. I'm a sucker for those.
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Thanks for the reply, fellow Jack ;) One thing I find kind of interesting is the idea of the party facing someone that they have almost no hope of defeating. Said character or characters could absolutely flatten the party and I could use them without having to worry about the campaign ending. If death is on the table I would have to go through the whole process to see if the player characters are dead even though I had no intention of killing them at that point in the game. I like the fact that in a no death game I'd have complete freedom to use all my npcs in any way I wish. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, the types of campaigns which have a linear level of progression. You beat fighter A, got some gear and 'xp', now face fighter B, then C, then D. The thing that's odd about that kind of game is that you're always tackling a suitable challenge, I don't particularly like that if it happens 100% of the time. I want to see the party lose some figths, learn from it, and maybe get revenge down the road.
I used to enjoy playing a bunch of different characters, and excuse to make a new one, I'd be all over it. But now I like to see a full story completed and get a big experience for my character. After that I can decide if I want to play a new guy next campaign or bring back my veteran.
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As Jack said, in SR character death has more to do with the player than the GM...
That said, as you your self point out, GMs should be tailoring their games to the players - making sure they actually have the skills and abilities to pull off the run.
However, sometimes the players themselves are their worst enemies! Despite the best plans of the GM, some players just go full on DERP in their decisions..... "Lets kill Richard Villiers!" "Lets blow up Ares!" Or some other half cocked idea that forces the GM to make a call....
The game? Or realism? Usually when the players go Derp like this, I hit them with realism.... which usually means at least one of them is making a new character.
(Like strolling into Ares NA HQ loaded with weapons was going to work guys....)
Sometimes you just can't save stupid..... which leads the GM to ask himself an important question: Is it his game/style? Or are his players REALLY that brain dead? Sometimes players pull these stunts when they are bored or fustrated by the game. Maybe its not going the way they want. Maybe they had a different ecpectations. Maybe they are tired of the campaign.
A line of communication with your players is important to find out just where things are going from a PC perspective. If your players aren't having fun, chances are they will create their own fun, at the campaign's expense.
And sometimes, you just have a shithead player....
That said, their are plently of shithead GMs too! (Look around the forums, lots of examples of shithead GMs in the posts..... one GM thought it would be 'fun' to throw his players up against 13 fucking dragons!!!)
An other issue with many player is what I call the 'Superman complex': they think they are the biggest, baddest jerks in the universe, and act like it. These are the players that think they should win everytime, no matter the situation or the odds.... They are outgunned 100:1 by -100 essence cyberzombies packing mini-guns shooting mini-nukes? CHARGE!!!!!! No matter how clear you make it that they are outgunned or outskilled, they think they can win. Every. Time. (If it helps, these are usually the same players that want to do insanely stupid things too. Like blow up a mega corp. Take in a great dragon... usually just to piss in the dragon's coffee cup...)
As I said before (and is in my Sig) You can't fix Stupid.
So, know your players... if you got any "superman" players don't expect them to play rational characters, or make rational decisions for their characters. BUT expect the hissy fit if they die cause they couldn't shoot their way out of the Yak stronghold after the Yak Johnson screws them in their pay....
Know your players.... save yourself the headaches, and plan accordingly.
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Thanks for your input, Reaver. I think you might have gotten the wrong impression from my post. My roleplaying group is very experienced and mature. We have a lot of fun together. It doesn't really have anything to do with the intelligence of the players, it's moreso about what makes the best roleplaying experience. I might have different gming philosophies than you as well. For example, you say it's the GM's job to make sure the players have the skills and abilities to pull off the run. I don't agree with that. Shadowrun is a game of misinformation, greed and backstabbing. Imagine you are in my campaign and Mr. Johnson offers you a run. The run sounds very reasonable and you accept it. However, during the run you find out you're in way over your head and things go really bad. The run is a complete disaster. That, in my opinion, is perfectly reasonable for a GM to do. The game does not need to be set up in such a way that the party always has a high chance for success, sometimes having no chance at all can be a lot of fun too. And by mixing it up like that and avoiding linear campaigns you can really keep your players on their toes and maintain the fear and uncertainty that comes with shadowrunning.
Going back to what you said, if my players attempted any of those endeavors that you listed I would absolutely crash down on them with an iron fist, unless they had a legitimately viable plan of how to get it done. I really dislike the 'superman' mentality, as you coined it. I like to embrace struggle, failure, shame, and other negative experiences. Winning every single time will only remain fun for so long, losing from time to time can add a lot of dimension to a game. But again, I don't have anyone like that in my group. We are actually in the process of researching what the best way to handle PC death it. It's a topic that has been widely debated and everyone has their own take on it, but I believe through my research I'll be able to find the answer I seek. So tell me, Reaver, how do you feel about PC death, assuming the players didn't do something silly?
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It really depends for me. "Even the best laid plans of mice and men" and all that. I am not a fan of the "no win" situation.... I see enough of that in real life thanks to my travel to many 2nd and 3rd world countries for work. So I tend to shy away from "The Impossible" both in the games I play and GM. IMO, there should always be a way to walk away, maybe not "win", but at least survive.
Now, that is not to say that players should be handed a "win" just for sitting down at the table, but neither should they be set up for a failure regardless of their actions. ("There's a nuke hidden in the city and it is going to go off in 30 seconds. Good luck!") Yes, there should be challenge - that's what makes for epic story telling! pulling off the "win" (or just surviving) against the Long Odds is what drives stories. But there has to be a balance there between the players expectations and the story. Players want to "win" (what ever "winning" is in a RPG... getting the girl, saving the day, completing the run, what have you) If you set them up to fail every time, that gets old. Fast! It becomes of case of "Why try? We are just going to lose anyways" and becomes a self fulfilling.
That is not to say that they should "win" every time, as losing, when handled right, can actually serve as a motivator for the players. Did the Johnson get the last laugh? Did the run they complete mean an entire neighbourhood gets poisoned and die? Did handing over that McGuffin lead to someone innocent's death? How do the players react? Revenge? Laugh it off? Seek justice? Only your players know how they will react, and just what they do to correct these "failures" can lead to some epic and memorable stories.
So generally I don't set up "death runs" for players, as that can build resentment in the group pretty quick, especially if the players feel it is contrived and purposely set upon them, with their actions not actually having any weight in the outcome. ("You are walking down the street, it's a typical rainy day in Seattle, and you don't have a care in the world at the moment. Now please make a damage resistance test VS 45p at the Thor shot hits you square in the head') <yea.. Fuck you GM!>
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I generally run very long term campaigns (and play in them too... heck the longest game I have played in is still going on from 1e! That's almost 30 years!), in such long term campaigns, I let the players actions and inactions shape the game and the outcomes. I generally start with enough planned out for about 10 to 15 sessions.. then use the players interactions to shape the game from there... If they haven't provided me with something really "juicy" before that! (They almost always do!). And it's usually amazing where the story ends up from what I had envisioned - all thanks to the players! Now along the way, deaths do happen...
the players "bite off more then they can chew", or poor dice luck results in a failure at the wrong time, or just plain old poor choices take their tolls on the team. It happens, and sometimes despite my or the players efforts, characters die. The key to it, is HOW they die. Was it through a series of unfortunate events? Was it a critical glitch at exactly the wrong time, with no Edge left for a re-roll? Was it through player stupidity? Was is a heroic sacrifice on the part of the player? Was it the GM just being a DICK?
Unfortunate events do happen. The best laid plans go awry. Usually when this happens, everyone at the table can see it coming and it can build a great game IF the players feel they have control. They may not be happy with the outcome, but they at least can say "well, I did everything I could, but it was just not in the cards" and move on.
Dice are a fickle master, I have seen more then my fair share of player who have crunched the numbers and loaded the deck in their favor as much as the game will allow... only to that dice pool of 40 dice thrown show 29 1s....Sometimes, no matter how well you build the character, it's the throw of the dice at the wrong moment that ends it all. ("I'm going to jump to the other roof! It's 5 meters away, thanks to my gymnastics skill and Agility, I only need 3 successes to make it! <rolls a critical glitch>. Crap! how much damage do I take from my cannonball to the ground? 16p? I can absorb that easy with a good roll! <critical glitch. Again>... Crap!")
Sometimes, player stupidity really just shines through, and the realistic response is the only option. Does the Face, instead of talking decide to pee in the Oyabun's Sake - in front of his 10 bodyguards while unarmed? Does the Sammy think that engaging the Ares Fire watch team while all he has is a light pistol? Does the decker decide to slot off that hostile AI while in the AI's home node? Not much you can really do but play it out to the logical end... even if all the other PCs are rolling their eyes cause they can see it coming.
Are the PCs stuck at that critical point with no way out... so the Sammy makes an Alamo play for the rest of the team to get away? Could a player mage stop the rampaging toxic spirit, but doing so means a lethal dose of radiation? Could the Decker slow down the Crash 3.0 virus long enough to allow thousands of innocents to jack out and survive...But die to the Virus himself? Sometimes players choose the heroic way out, knowing that their character is dead.
But being a DICK GM and actively plotting and planning to kill a character? Not a GM I want to play with. He's taken my choice out of the game for his narrative, what ever that narrative is, I don't really care - cause well, my character is dead. I don't have an incentive to roll up a new one cause he's made it clear through the death of my first character that I don't really have a say in the story to start with... so why waste my valuable free time being his plot device? after all, he's got 'X' other players he can screw over. (And I am fairly sure he will....) best to just move on to a different table and find a game that I do enjoy.
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PC deaths happen. Its in the how that matters. If you rob the player of choice, then it's not a roll-playing game, its a person telling a narrative which would probably be better served as a written story and not a game. If the death happens through my own personal choices, well that's life at least I had a choice... even if I took a the poor ones. If it happens cause of 'Will Of the Dice Gods'..... well that's fine too. I got to make my choices, but lady luck decided it was not to be. Can't fault anyone for that. Has the group though their choices backed us up into the corner, and only I can save the day - at the cost of my character? Well, at least it was our choices that brought us there, and at least I still have a say in the outcome.
Now all that said. Sometimes a player is just tired of a character and wants a change, but hey don't want the "retired to a beach" ending for that character, they want the "blaze of glory" or the "noble death" ending for that character... That's fine, I'll try to make it happen (as long as doing so doesn't rob the other players of their character's actions) As a GM, killing a character off is very, very, VERY easy. There is a whole world at your fingertips filled with horrific nasties to do that job rather easily, just it if you choose. Just be ready for the fallout of said actions when they come.
And as I said before, sometimes the poor choices or actions of a player can only lead to death.... If that is the logical out come, and they make no attempt to change that outcome through actual smart play, I feel no need to hold their hand either.
But I never wake up and say "Today, I am Killing Mike's character." Mike's character may still die... but it won't be cause I planned it, it will be because of Mike's and the other players choices, actions, reactions, and antics.
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I have to agree that setting up a 'death trap' with no chance for escape is not going to be fun. I was talking more about getting your ass kicked by a superior but living to fight another day, that is something I think can be cool. The game world is large and has dragons, Harlequin and other badasses, I like to think that it's possible to encounter them and get a harsh lesson, but not a random and sudden death without any rhyme or reason. I find most games tend to have no possibility of something like that happening, players instead go from one challenge to the next, all designed for success. While that's not terrible I think there should be a very real chance of failure, otherwise it just gets a bit predictable.
I guess in a 30 year old campaign it would be outlandish to not allow player death lol. My group tends to play campaigns that last a year at most and often we wrap them up in half of that time or even a quarter if we have time. Regarding heroic deaths, yes, that should be a possibility. I think that is a classic outcome which is really fantastic, the best part is that the player makes the decision that his time is up, it's not just a random bad roll. I do agree that losing all the time would be boring too, but I do believe that groups that just win over and over for decades are missing out for sure, losing can be quite enjoyable too (as you said).
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Well, to give you an idea, in the 30 year campaign, I have played the same character, and amassed around 4300 karma...
BUT, there has been a lot of pain and suffering along the way to get there. During the 2e times, we used the optional damage rules... which were, to put it mildly.. harsh. My character was blinded by a grenade and spent almost a full 3 years just relying on astral perception to see. (thanks to his dislike of augmentations) before he finally broke down and got some ware (there was no cloned organs back then).
The same game, his own choices led to liver failure (alcoholic) during 3e.... but he was able to get a type O liver replacement....
Others were not so lucky. We have gone through 3 samurai, 2 of which died horrifically in gun battles to Corp security. Our Decker died to the Crash 2.0 virus. (well.... is brain dead... so to speak. So might as well be dead)
Even now, at 4300+ karma, there are fights that we just can't win... without the GM resorting to Cyberzombies, or Great Dragons. (you only have so much ammo with you! And drain stacks up)
Part of the reason why several of us have lasted so long is being able to recgognize when fighting is NOT an option, and running means surviving.... (something quite a few people don't seem to get)
OTOH, when we go out of our way to hurt someone or something, we can do that too.... (Ahhh the Seattle Coffee Wars! The mayhem, the destruction!)
Most of it boils down to having a good GM that doesn't treat enemies as paper targets and uses actual combat tactics that make sense to enemy. We STILL get nervous at the mention of possible HRT teams, Red Samurai, or Aztec Special forces... cause while we may be miles above them individually, they have the numbers, know how to use those numbers, and are generally better armed then we are.
Do we win? Yes.
Do we win every time? No.
Have we had some epic confrontations over the years? Oh yes!
And we have lost our fair share of friends and family along the way, simply because even if you win, you can still lose big...
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That sounds like a lot of fun to me. I'm totally with you on people disregarding danger and refusing to run. Sometimes you gotta put the RUN in ShadowRUN :D
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Unless the player is okay with losing the character (generally will not be the case unless they aren't really feeling the character and want to change), every effort should be taken to preserve the character and their equipment (and thus functionality within the scope of the mechanics) unless the death is a 'heroic' one that creates an EXCELLENT story line conclusion (or beginning). Making sure that the player can continue with a character they enjoy is MUCH more important than 'realistic consequences'.
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Unless the player is okay with losing the character (generally will not be the case unless they aren't really feeling the character and want to change), every effort should be taken to preserve the character and their equipment (and thus functionality within the scope of the mechanics) unless the death is a 'heroic' one that creates an EXCELLENT story line conclusion (or beginning). Making sure that the player can continue with a character they enjoy is MUCH more important than 'realistic consequences'.
It's funny how perspectives change. A year ago I would have thought what you just said was completely insane, yet now it seems like a very sound stance. Thanks for your input.
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I wish I had read this earlier. Most of the posts are great in response, but I'll give you mine anyway.
I always tell my players that if they want to write novels, they should do so. I write novels and get paid very well for it. But if they plan on playing an RPG, do not put work into their characters. This is because, in RPGs, especially in games like Shadowrun where there is no Raise Dead capability (at least that I know of), shit happens, and characters die. Even under the best of conditions.
I used to make long, convoluted narratives about my characters too. Believe me, I know the feeling of losing one of them. But, them's the breaks. It sucks, but you, as GM, can't play favorites. He has to let the dice do their work, and if the rules kills off the PC, them's the rules. Sorry. Games are not like Real Life, nor are they like Novels. In Novels, you can choose when and where and how your characters meet their end. You don't always get that in games.
That sounds harsh, but believe me it's for the best. Because people like that need other outlets to be creative in like that. Who knows? That player could be the next Tolkien.
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Assuming you don't have a dickhead player or dickhead GM, I always find the biggest mistake to be assuming the whole world runs on MCT's rules. If everyone operates on Zero Zone assumptions, the Zero Zone is meaningless.
Even with the Runners as nameless deniable assets that doesn't mean they won't have valuable information. You may not know who orchestrated the hit, but you do know who it was on, and what other objectives you might've had. If you get caught infiltrating corp facilities, they're going to be very interested in what you were after, and then some. They might even have a counter offer for you.
Which means there's always the possibility the runner is taken in alive, and, well...sometimes the breakout (http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Hoxton_Breakout) is just as much fun as getting into trouble in the first place.
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Assuming you don't have a dickhead player or dickhead GM, I always find the biggest mistake to be assuming the whole world runs on MCT's rules. If everyone operates on Zero Zone assumptions, the Zero Zone is meaningless.
Even with the Runners as nameless deniable assets that doesn't mean they won't have valuable information. You may not know who orchestrated the hit, but you do know who it was on, and what other objectives you might've had. If you get caught infiltrating corp facilities, they're going to be very interested in what you were after, and then some. They might even have a counter offer for you.
Which means there's always the possibility the runner is taken in alive, and, well...sometimes the breakout (http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Hoxton_Breakout) is just as much fun as getting into trouble in the first place.
That's very true. There is a plethora of options if the runner does not immediately die from excess overflow damage. My primary concern is whether or not it's good for a player character to suddenly die in a bad way. The odd part of this is that Shadwowrun makes it unlikely for player characters to actually die because they can just repeatedly burn edge and buy more. Yes the rules are quite lethal otherwise. So what happens is that the character is more likely to lose a bunch of Edge than actually die, and yet the process of buying back Edge is expensive, which means you may not make very much progress, which in turn could be a bit frustrating.
I wish I had read this earlier. Most of the posts are great in response, but I'll give you mine anyway.
I always tell my players that if they want to write novels, they should do so. I write novels and get paid very well for it. But if they plan on playing an RPG, do not put work into their characters. This is because, in RPGs, especially in games like Shadowrun where there is no Raise Dead capability (at least that I know of), shit happens, and characters die. Even under the best of conditions.
I used to make long, convoluted narratives about my characters too. Believe me, I know the feeling of losing one of them. But, them's the breaks. It sucks, but you, as GM, can't play favorites. He has to let the dice do their work, and if the rules kills off the PC, them's the rules. Sorry. Games are not like Real Life, nor are they like Novels. In Novels, you can choose when and where and how your characters meet their end. You don't always get that in games.
That sounds harsh, but believe me it's for the best. Because people like that need other outlets to be creative in like that. Who knows? That player could be the next Tolkien.
That was a well articulated reply although I would argue that it is fairly subjective and in no way conclusive. Games come with a set of rules but gaming groups make house rules all the time. Lethality of any game is something that can be modified. At the heart of it I like the reality that you can die any time in an rpg. Shadowrun doesn't really offer that. If you really want to continue your story all you need to do is continuously burn Edge and you'll get to do that. So in the context of this discussion Shadowrun is on the low end of the spectrum in terms of lethality even though it is very easy to experience a near death situation. Meanwhile other games are legitimately very lethal and your character can exit the story in a heartbeat. I am very much so on the fence about this entire topic. I'm quite torn to side with the lethality of gaming and disallow Edge burning entirely, while another part of me likes the idea of keeping it. In non-Shadowrun games I also remain very unsure of what would be the best approach. I have realized that I place more value on conclusions to campaigns and getting the full experience of my characters more than anything, yet the value of it all could be cheapened if death is off the table.
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Note: You only have to burn a single point of Edge to escape death.....
And if you are constantly doing that.... it may just be time to examine your build and/or play style to see WHY you have to keep burning edge...
But, from what I have seen, most players seem to rather die then burn edge, even when reminded they could.... (No idea why this happens but it does!)
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That problem can be avoided if GM don't allow to specific qualities which force players te behave in specific manner like mentor spirits, code of honor, specific bias or so on. Many pre-made runs has very specific conditions and sometimes they collide with this bevahiors.
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I always tell my players that if they want to write novels, they should do so. I write novels and get paid very well for it. But if they plan on playing an RPG, do not put work into their characters. This is because, in RPGs, especially in games like Shadowrun where there is no Raise Dead capability (at least that I know of), shit happens, and characters die. Even under the best of conditions.
Then don't expect your players to ever giving a flying fornication about any character they play in your games, and don't complain if you ever see the characters treated like "a bunch of numbers on paper" by your players.
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I find one of the largest contributors to players taking death well is them having an idea for their next character. When character death means something new to look forward to, rather than the chore of coming up with a new idea, it is a very different experience.
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Yeah, in the games I run and play in, death is always an option;
One of them is a death-crawl of doom, for instance. As a group, we all know to bring backup characters to every session, and there have been multiple TPKs.
Another is a year old, multi-year campaign, where three PCs have died over the course of it (all of them died to the same group, who SHOULD have been working with us, but they're idiots).
My Dark Heresy campaign (a very lethal system) has surprisingly only had one death over 8 months, mostly due to the PCs having very good survival instincts.
My D&D campaign had a party wipe at one point as well.
The big thing to me (and most players I play with) is that there is risk to it. Why bother if you know you'll always succeed and never die? The threat of losing the character you've worked on motivates you to keep them alive. I don't suggest letting them die as the result of a stupid roll; there's plenty of other ways to go down, though.
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@MijRai: There should never be a gaurantee of success, I agree on that. I embrace failure and even relish in it. But what I am unsure about is death itself. If a group plays through my campaign and dies in the last session, that is fine. If they lose but survive, that is fine too. My major concern lies in the value of the story. Imagine watching the first Star Wars movie and Luke Skywalker dies 45 minutes in after he's been build up substantially. At that point there would be a big disconnect from the audience and there would be no way to salvage the movie. Of course, rpgs and movies are not the same, but they are very similar. Part of what I like about watching movies is that I know I will get some sort of conclusion, whether it be what I wanted or not. I find that more interesting than a session 4 party wipe. If that happens the game is in a very odd state in my opinion. And yes, I am well aware that there is no shortage of ways to move forward, but I do believe the finality will be less spectacular.
Regarding realism and fear of death, they are fine elements of a story indeed. Ideally, a true roleplayer can always fear death even though he knows it won't be possible for some time. But when it comes down to it, what is more important: The realization that death could be around every corner or being able to finish a campaign and see the collaborative effort of the entire group reach a fantastic conclusion? You can't always have both, but you can always have one.
Another thing I'd like to point out is that my group does not generally play 50+ session campaigns. By that point it could be difficult to keep a really good storyline going, in essence it would be like multiple campaigns merged into one. If no death occurred by that point it could definitely start to feel strange. These days I'm more interested in shorter campaigns, so character death can be a real hindrance.
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Isn't failing and/or dying a conclusion? I'm really not a fan of 'it has to have some kind of vaguely satisfying conclusion.' Sometimes the good guys don't win. Bad stuff can happen. Despite their best efforts, evil has triumphed and the world is going down. One of the best campaigns I ever took part in was where the original heroes all failed miserably and died. Horrible things were happening across the world. And the new group the players made had to deal with the fallout of what their previous characters' failures had wrought. Every time I write up a scenario, I also put in a 'what if they fail' paragraph to go off of if things go sideways.
While you can't always have both, you can work towards having both instead of giving up on one. I've been doing that well in my Dark Heresy game; fantastic blows have caused people to nearly die, allies of theirs have been mercilessly killed or maimed due to decisions the NPC made or the PC made, etc.
While I am fine with shorter campaigns, it is the long ones that entrance me. I'm a fan of epic fantasy, of long stories that can take years to be resolved. And yes, a part of the way you make it work is you break it into multiple 'campaigns' or chapters. My favorite campaign to date (currently on hiatus) has taken us about 15 months to get from the beginning to abut one-third of the way through by the GM estimates (about three or four years in game). That involved three major storylines (the introduction and the recovering of two artifacts so far), a half-dozen minor ones, a couple character development scenarios, etc.
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That problem can be avoided if GM don't allow to specific qualities which force players te behave in specific manner like mentor spirits, code of honor, specific bias or so on. Many pre-made runs has very specific conditions and sometimes they collide with this bevahiors.
I find the problem is very literally never with those qualities. Inflexible GMs exist as much as inflexible players - perhaps even more so - and absolutely can effect a game. I adore having mentor spirits and code of honor and bias and whatnot. It gives me another level to pull to get and keep player interest.
The main reason players find burning Edge so abhorant is because it represents a loss of permanent capabilities, and one that is increasingly expensive. Nuyen is for the most part somewhat inconsistent between runs, but karma is usually kept the same across players - a 15 karma loss is quite a hard thing to swallow, as that could be several sessions worth of karma. Then you add in that 15 is the LOWEST it can cost - it costs characters with very high Edge even MORE. On top of that it can turn into a downward spiral; you lose that karma, so you spend more to try to balance it back up, but now you're at a net loss of karma, so your character is weaker, so it dies easier... That isn't to say burning karma is BAD; it's more a note on how Shadowrun's engine is built. Specializing is important in the game, but it's also more expensive, and losing points in your specialization is going to hurt bad.
I think in the end some o fShadowrun's rules are built for a more old school D&D style of game; the whole "don't name the character until your level 5" kinda deal. The problem with using that in Shadowrun is that, unlike OD&D, where rolling a new character is very literally rolling three dice six times, making a new Shadowrun character is way, WAY more...let's go with "ornate." On top of that, one of the side effects of having long and detailed chargen is that players get more easily attached to their characters even before letting them lose into the game world. A game with super common death and mayhem can work, but you need a system built around that assumption, and Shadowrun chargen is very much not. You don't want to spend an hour or two making a character, then dying on day one.
The Star Wars comparison is actually a pretty good one, because the entirety of Empire Strikes Back is based on non-stop failure. The Rebels are hurt bad fleeing Hoth. Luke more or less fails his training with Yoda. Han is betrayed by his good friend Lando and is carbonite'd. Luke fights Vader and gets his hand severed. These are all great points of time where the heroes unequivocally fail - but the failure isn't an instant death, reroll state. In fact, look at Han getting frozen in carbonite and remember what I said about getting back into trouble to save the guy you left behind potentially being even more fun then getting into that original trouble the first time around. The whole Jabba's palace thing may as well be one big in-game run. You've got the infiltrator sneaking in disguised as the pre-game, the gear is surreptitiously hidden where it can be easily accessed, the face goes in and tries to sneak out the goods and gets captured, the mage rolls in to try and smooth things over, then the entire plan goes horribly wrong and it's off to Plan B: Set Guns To Full Auto And Blast Our Way Out.
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That problem can be avoided if GM don't allow to specific qualities which force players te behave in specific manner like mentor spirits, code of honor, specific bias or so on. Many pre-made runs has very specific conditions and sometimes they collide with this bevahiors.
I find the problem is very literally never with those qualities. Inflexible GMs exist as much as inflexible players - perhaps even more so - and absolutely can effect a game. I adore having mentor spirits and code of honor and bias and whatnot. It gives me another level to pull to get and keep player interest.
The main reason players find burning Edge so abhorant is because it represents a loss of permanent capabilities, and one that is increasingly expensive. Nuyen is for the most part somewhat inconsistent between runs, but karma is usually kept the same across players - a 15 karma loss is quite a hard thing to swallow, as that could be several sessions worth of karma. Then you add in that 15 is the LOWEST it can cost - it costs characters with very high Edge even MORE. On top of that it can turn into a downward spiral; you lose that karma, so you spend more to try to balance it back up, but now you're at a net loss of karma, so your character is weaker, so it dies easier... That isn't to say burning karma is BAD; it's more a note on how Shadowrun's engine is built. Specializing is important in the game, but it's also more expensive, and losing points in your specialization is going to hurt bad.
I think in the end some o fShadowrun's rules are built for a more old school D&D style of game; the whole "don't name the character until your level 5" kinda deal. The problem with using that in Shadowrun is that, unlike OD&D, where rolling a new character is very literally rolling three dice six times, making a new Shadowrun character is way, WAY more...let's go with "ornate." On top of that, one of the side effects of having long and detailed chargen is that players get more easily attached to their characters even before letting them lose into the game world. A game with super common death and mayhem can work, but you need a system built around that assumption, and Shadowrun chargen is very much not. You don't want to spend an hour or two making a character, then dying on day one.
The Star Wars comparison is actually a pretty good one, because the entirety of Empire Strikes Back is based on non-stop failure. The Rebels are hurt bad fleeing Hoth. Luke more or less fails his training with Yoda. Han is betrayed by his good friend Lando and is carbonite'd. Luke fights Vader and gets his hand severed. These are all great points of time where the heroes unequivocally fail - but the failure isn't an instant death, reroll state. In fact, look at Han getting frozen in carbonite and remember what I said about getting back into trouble to save the guy you left behind potentially being even more fun then getting into that original trouble the first time around. The whole Jabba's palace thing may as well be one big in-game run. You've got the infiltrator sneaking in disguised as the pre-game, the gear is surreptitiously hidden where it can be easily accessed, the face goes in and tries to sneak out the goods and gets captured, the mage rolls in to try and smooth things over, then the entire plan goes horribly wrong and it's off to Plan B: Set Guns To Full Auto And Blast Our Way Out.
Brilliantly articulated post, bravo! That sums up my feelings quite nicely. Another issue for me is that I'm quite interested to get my hands on a Fairlight Excalibur (or Paladin) at some point. I've been playing Shadowrun off and on for decades and I still haven't gotten one. Part of that is due to my love of creating characters, which results in campaigns being relatively short. Acquiring such an exoribantly priced item is difficult but possible if you can survive long enough. I really doubt that dying with 600,000 nuyen is going to be fun. You didn't get the item you've been saving up for, for a long time, and meanwhile the rest of the part has rocking Betaware augmentations and riding around in Mitsubishi Nightsky's, or toting Force 12 Foci. After a death like that I highly doubt a player would make another decker and start saving again. And that's part of what is difficult in Shadowrun, if you ever want to get these items without stealing them or having the GM hand them to you, you're going to need to do a lot of saving, we're talking about months of saving fictional currency, if not years.
I'm very torn on this issue, most of my group has decided that it would be cool if player characters didn't die, except in very specific circumstances, but one of our guys really likes the idea of being able to die. The idea in itself is solid, especially in a game like Dungeons and Dragons, which you can get a new chararcter up and running in a short amount of time. But in Shadowrun, iike you have mentioned, the process of character creation is quite detailed and attachment to your character is quite likely. I'm not sure I like the idea of having to burn multiple points of Edge during a long campaign, and really not liking the idea of my character being killed. I like to think of the game more as a movie in which my character is one of the main characters. I could fail repeatedly, I could be shamed, raped, or beaten (or worse) but I get to experience the full story of my character.
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On of the things our group uses is know as the "50% on death" rule.
If your character dies, you get 50% of that character's assets for your new one.
And while it means you start at serious disadvantage compared to the others, it doesn't leave you totally boned.
And it gives much more weight to burning an edge to survive rather then dying and making a new character.
Mind you, we are talking a level of karma 99% of players will never see just cause games generally don't last as long as ours....
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I am in favor of the possibility of character death being real. I'm not saying the game necessarily has to be super-lethal. The shadowrunners can always retreat, being captured doesn't have to be a death sentence, and some runs can be completed without a shot being fired. But I still like to know that the character can die, and not always at a dramatic moment. I feel the same way about NPCs - if the group shoots the big bad two "scenes" early, then don't contrive for him to miraculously survive because the story demands it.
I like games that are more character-driven than event-driven, and I prefer plots where the runners can affect the outcome to rigid story-lines where various set pieces must happen before a dramatic final scene.
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On of the things our group uses is know as the "50% on death" rule.
If your character dies, you get 50% of that character's assets for your new one.
I do something similar. We keep a running tally of all rewards and your new character starts at square one, but gets double rewards until he has caught up to the tally. Once we get further along (100 karma or so), I'll probably allow 20 karma and 40,000 nuyen to be added to the starting character right away.
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Losing a character is bad enough, but being at half the post-generation karma and cash totals as the rest of the team is just insult to injury. The same person is even more likely to die again putting them at 25% and again putting them at 12.5% so forth and so on.
Edit- In the vast majority of cases ALL new characters should get the exact same amount of karma and cash as the party has accrued up to that point to keep them from being behind the curve.
Now, however, I can see a case being made for the new character(s) starting with an amount less of cash equal to what the average lifestyle cost among the characters is if the game has been running long enough that those costs have been paid out since that cost doesn't directly correlate to character capability improvement.
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I am in favor of the possibility of character death being real. I'm not saying the game necessarily has to be super-lethal. The shadowrunners can always retreat, being captured doesn't have to be a death sentence, and some runs can be completed without a shot being fired. But I still like to know that the character can die, and not always at a dramatic moment. I feel the same way about NPCs - if the group shoots the big bad two "scenes" early, then don't contrive for him to miraculously survive because the story demands it.
I like games that are more character-driven than event-driven, and I prefer plots where the runners can affect the outcome to rigid story-lines where various set pieces must happen before a dramatic final scene.
So in Shadowrun do you feel like your character can die? Being able to repeatedly burn Edge makes it very unlikely that it would actually happen. Regarding lethality, characters can get dropped pretty easily, even by a pistol user with only moderate skill. The bigger the gun, the easier it is for unexpected lethal situations to arise, even if the situation was not intended to be particularly lethal. So when you talk about the potential to die, do you mean after you have expended all of your Edge? Or does your group use some alternative rule?
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I'm in just one online game, which has stalled. My character got pretty banged up in a fight, and actually came close to losing. Not sure if I would have burned Edge to save him - or how that would work in conjunction with his Unlucky flaw. Hypothetically speaking, the ability to burn Edge does not save you from complications (being captured by the bad guys, or being badly wounded and far from where you can get medical help), and unless you keep buying it back up, it will eventually run out. Like I said, the game doesn't have to be lethal, but I prefer games where I feel like there is a real risk to my character, and no one is holding my hand.
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I see. That makes sense and yes I am aware that burning Edge doesn't mean you got off easy ^_^ What my group is considering at the moment is to have no death for chunks of campaigns, but then in more important sessions it could occur.
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Interesting thread!
Been GMing since March, and we've had one party death - the decker got involved in a nasty gunfight with someone dishing out 6 round bursts, while the sammy was a few blocks away. He chose not to burn edge, but to create a new character he'd been thinking about for a while.
I've not seen character death affect the story overly, the adventure tends to drive the plot along. I guess it depends on how crucial to the plot a particular character is. I do try to write adventures around character backgrounds, especially their contacts and friendships, so I could see this causing issues, but it hasn't so far.
I think an issue where character death can be a problem is if a new player is transitioning from a system such as D&D, with a very different combat system. Overconfidence can kill real quick. Also if a player doesn't understand the situation they are in, eg. we had a new player rip off a flamethrower spell in the middle of yakuza owned nightclub, which went south fast, but didn't actually kill any runners. In either of these situations, the player may see their resulting bludgeoning, or death, as "unfair" and a more yielding GM might be tempted to let them slip away, due to their lack of understanding. However, my view is that if the world responds realistically (and robustly) they will very quickly see the error of their ways, and amend their behaviour.
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Another thing is to be up front about it as a GM... I'm GMing two games and I've talked to my players about pushing the challenge of combat as they get a better handle on the game(one of the game is using pre-gen runs and planning to throw a lot of the "Pushing the Envelope" combat challenges at them). I have said that character death might be more likely, but on the flip side I've also said that if a character does get killed, the player will get most(~75%) of their accumulated Karma/Nuyen carried over to their new character.
As a few have said before, talk to your players. What do they expect? What do they want? Are they comfortable with character loss? Do they want to challenge themselves at a greater risk to their character? If you have this kind of talk, then at least everyone is on the same page, this can do a lot to mitigate potentual future issues.
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I like to think that a GM would fudge a senseless death, or give a result that is less than death.
However, the possibility of death has to be real, to keep choices real. If you believe the GM won't let you die, having a ganger come up behind you in a diner, and put a gun to your head would have no effect. That is one of the nice things of Shadowrun vs D&D. In D&D, in a commoner has a sword at your back, you know that you can soak the damage. In Shadowrun, even mooks can kill quickly, as you don't have hit points that scale with level.
If death were not a possibility, you would never back down from a fight when in reality you really should.
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I think my group would still respect the possibility of death in terms of immersion and realism. We wouldn't be looking to use this knowledge in an unfair manner. We too have been considering the tracking of nuyen and karma and allowing it to carry over to new characters if one dies. I think it's a great solution, given the exorbitant price tags of some items.
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Losing a character is bad enough, but being at half the post-generation karma and cash totals as the rest of the team is just insult to injury. The same person is even more likely to die again putting them at 25% and again putting them at 12.5% so forth and so on.
Edit- In the vast majority of cases ALL new characters should get the exact same amount of karma and cash as the party has accrued up to that point to keep them from being behind the curve.
Now, however, I can see a case being made for the new character(s) starting with an amount less of cash equal to what the average lifestyle cost among the characters is if the game has been running long enough that those costs have been paid out since that cost doesn't directly correlate to character capability improvement.
This is an important point: You want to avoid the neverending death spiral. Player A gets unlucky and dies, so they submit their new character who is now dramatically weaker then the rest of the party. That character dies again for obvious reasons. The rest of the team gets stronger, and they make another new character, That character dies again for obvious reasons, etc, etc.
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Losing a character is bad enough, but being at half the post-generation karma and cash totals as the rest of the team is just insult to injury. The same person is even more likely to die again putting them at 25% and again putting them at 12.5% so forth and so on.
Edit- In the vast majority of cases ALL new characters should get the exact same amount of karma and cash as the party has accrued up to that point to keep them from being behind the curve.
Now, however, I can see a case being made for the new character(s) starting with an amount less of cash equal to what the average lifestyle cost among the characters is if the game has been running long enough that those costs have been paid out since that cost doesn't directly correlate to character capability improvement.
This is an important point: You want to avoid the neverending death spiral. Player A gets unlucky and dies, so they submit their new character who is now dramatically weaker then the rest of the party. That character dies again for obvious reasons. The rest of the team gets stronger, and they make another new character, That character dies again for obvious reasons, etc, etc.
A problem easily solved by giving a replacement character extra karma equal to what the rest of the party has earned during the campaign.
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Yeah, a part of my game is that I've tallied every monetary and experience-based award (including the number of contacts/peers and knowledges I occasionally hand out due to people having time to study). It doesn't include what the group has looted on their own, but nothing is perfect. Besides that, a new character is just as advanced as their old one, whether they're built for combat or something else.
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Which is exactly what I was suggesting with the addition of the new character getting the same amount in extra cash as well since that is as tied to advancement as karma.
Again, deducting what had, on average, been spent on lifestyle from the extra cash would work, but the Street Sam especially needs the extra cash as much as if not more than the karma.