Are PCs still dying in SR4? Options

[sunnyside]

I've been noticing stories here of player death. Now it's possible that they're from older editions where that was easier (or when some players would rather just start a new character than play their old one after a "hand of god").

But I wonder if players are still dying semi regularly despite the fairly cheap "hand of god" ish edge burning option.

[sabs]

I really hope players aren't dying because of Shadowrun.

That would be really sad.

But I suspect that characters do die. The game is still quite deadly, and sometimes you only have so much edge.

[Surukai]

I guess it is very rare to see players die, their characters are less furtunate though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I'd say with abusing Form-fit body armour makes characters very durable but since I removed the uncalled for stacking of that only armor I've seen much more character lethal damage and even lost a few but it is still rare.

[Neraph]

Last week my game's face (I'm GM-ing) didn't make over too well with four FA assault rifles. SR4. The troll didn't take any damage at all.

[Thanee]

I've been noticing stories here of player death. Now it's possible that they're from older editions where that was easier (or when some players would rather just start a new character than play their old one after a "hand of god").

But I wonder if players are still dying semi regularly despite the fairly cheap "hand of god" ish edge burning option.

Are we playing the same game? SR4 is incredibly deadly.

Those long/full bursts with APDS really hurt. A lot.

Even big nasty trolls with 30 soak dps "only" soak 10 boxes on average. An AR full burst starts at 15 before net hits.

Of course, there is still the Overflow to prevent characters from dying all the time.

But players need to use Edge quite a lot (thankfully not too often for Hand of God, only happened once so far) for their characters to survive.

Bye
Thanee

[Warlordtheft]

Ditto-In my group I've had 2 PC deaths, and many close calls.

1 PC death was due to another PC.
2 PC deaths was due to getting into a firefight with a gang at the gang's hangout.

1 missed call was a PC going astral and getting her arsed kicked by a shedhim...yes her body was occupied briefly. SHe use edge but got a flaw in the process.


Generall I encourage the group to avoid combat cause it is deadly and a PC usually gets hurt (Body armor is a life saver).

[yesferatu]

I've had a character or two die.
I want my game to be challenging, but survivable.
A character can still catch an unlucky burst.

If the fights are scaled properly and the players don't screw up, they should have a better than average chance.
I wouldn't want to put them into an impossible situation or spoon-feed them easy mode grunts.

[Yerameyahu]

It's very easy for PCs to die, FFBA notwithstanding.

[Ascalaphus]

I don't discourage combat, because I enjoy it as a GM and as a player. I do my best to take combat to the edge where the players are really sweating, but PC death isn't all that common. I feel most successful if the players are all "whew, that was close" at the end.

[Malbur]

In my game, we've avoided fights like the plague. 95% of the time, we've either convinced others to do the dirty work or nullified the threat without entering combat at all. Thank god for those gases that knock people out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[J. Packer]

In my game, we've avoided fights like the plague. 95% of the time, we've either convinced others to do the dirty work or nullified the threat without entering combat at all. Thank god for those gases that knock people out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I dunno... a run that had no combat in it would trip me "that was too easy" sensors every time...

[Sengir]

But I wonder if players are still dying semi regularly despite the fairly cheap "hand of god" ish edge burning option.

God's hand will only save your life: Your steady hand, good looks, Essence, and anything else which defines a certain character is at the GM's mercy (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

And at the very least, a player using the hand of god will spend the rest of the session with interesting tasks like twiddling thumbs, fetching dinner, "could you hand me that book" and the like.

[Megu]

Yes. My players didn't really use Hand of God because they were new to gaming and had a bunch of character ideas they wanted to try out. They were also pants on head retarded, which increased the body count.

[Jizmack]

If the GM knows the game mechanics well enough to calculate reasonable odds for the PCs to survive a challenging firefight, and the PCs aren’t doing anything blatantly stupid, then PC death should be very rare.

[ZeroPoint]

I don't discourage combat, because I enjoy it as a GM and as a player. I do my best to take combat to the edge where the players are really sweating, but PC death isn't all that common. I feel most successful if the players are all "whew, that was close" at the end.

This.

My goal isn't to kill players but create a challenging and rewarding experience for the players. I don't think I've had a player die yet, though I try not to pull my punches either. But that doesn't mean my players WONT die if they do something stupid. I think perhaps 4th edition is less lethal than other editions for those players that keep their heads down. But shooting yourself in the face with pistol will kill you just as easily as a shotgun will (talking real life here, don't bring up 4th edition damage codes and how you CANT kill yourself with pistol even if you wanted to unless you were a pistol god. Its a metaphor, dangit).

[StealthSigma]

I don't think I've had a player die yet, though I try not to pull my punches either.

I think your memory is going if you can't remember if you've killed any of our SR PCs.....

[Ascalaphus]

So far the only character to die in my campaign was the Body 2 Unarmed Combat Adept. He had impressive Reaction, but wide burst fire really got the better of him. It served as a learning signal to the rest of the group, and Body/Armor have gone up a lot.

[ZeroPoint]

Well, that statement in my mind was really on a different level. I don't think I've we've ever been in a situation in SR where a player SHOULD have died and I had to fudge a roll or something to save them. I reserve such behavior for situations where the player had a reasonably good chance of success and I think it would be cool to succeed but still fails because of continued bad luck (my brother comes to mind...can't roll above a 3). But havn't had to do that with SR compared to other games. Edge stat adds a built in GM fudge rule.

[WyldKnight]

But I wonder if players are still dying semi regularly despite the fairly cheap "hand of god" ish edge burning option.

Ya we've lost a few PCs but I don't think hand of god is cheap at all. In fact it's a very fair trade imo.

In exchange for not dying you permanently lose one point of edge and gain some sort of burden related to the way you almost died. For mages this can mean losing a chunk of essence due to life saving implants or a hacker getting burned from some black ice and having a bad twitch and combat paralysis for the rest of his life. Sometimes dying would actually be easier to continuing with a slightly gimped character. In fact unless someone was extra attached to the character I've seen hand of god saved for PCs with more Karma so the hit to their effectiveness wouldn't be that bad.

[Redcrow]

New characters in my games tend to experience a high mortality rate until the players are able to get past the idea that absolutely every living target in their path must be destroyed no matter what. Once the players take heed to my warning about choosing their battles carefully, things begin to run more smoothly.

A majority of combats in my games tend to be running gun battles with the characters attempting to make a hasty retreat before reinforcements arrive. Sometimes the characters will be in a position to take out an entire enemy force quickly before making their exit and they are usually smart enough not to stick around to brag and/or loot bodies.

I also try to warn new players about heavily min/maxing their characters by pointing out the fact that not only can I (as GM) do the same, but I'm probably better at it and have an endless supply of NPCs I can do it to if necessary. Playing the numbers game against the GM is a no win scenario, so I try to encourage them to just play the character and not the numbers.

[Malbur]

I dunno... a run that had no combat in it would trip me "that was too easy" sensors every time...

We still have combat in every run, we just force them to work in our favor... Also, we usually spend a session planning out our attacks and making sure things go smooth as possible. Disable cameras, disable drones (or have backdoors in place to do so 5 seconds before we run into them in the actual run), watch security procedures and plan ways to avoid, etc. It isn't a run a session, but a run ever two...

[tagz]

Yeah, I have no issue with the Hando' God. Players who are extremely attached to a character can keep them kicking, even past the point the've become walking liabilities.

No... the one I have issue with is burning edge in the same manner to guarantee a critical success... often used on a dodge or soak roll to basically do the same thing but without that fun new quirk the character gets saddled with.

[sunnyside]

OK, so Megu has pants on head retarded players and Sengir and Wyldknight apparently have evil GMs, where a player burning edge for a hand o' god might be greeted with banjo music and other Deliverance references until they tear up the character sheets to stop the narration. Or something like that.

But most of the rest of you seem to be acting like the "escape certain death" option isn't there. Do players just not know about it and the GM doesn't tell them? Or is pulling a hand 'o god what people mean when they say player death. Like the adept in Ascalaphus's game would have died, except they burned edge.

Well, I suppose it could be different with pretty new characters. You aren't very attached and you'd be at a lower BP level than you started.

No... the one I have issue with is burning edge in the same manner to guarantee a critical success... often used on a dodge or soak roll to basically do the same thing but without that fun new quirk the character gets saddled with.

Well I see that as an entirely different situation than the hand of god scenario. For one you're still in the fight, so you might end up burning a second edge when the sniper makes their next shot or whatever. But moreso it's that you just need around one little roll. A bullet goes a little to the right and you're fine, and can go on to be a Big Damn Hero.

HoG is more for when you're totally surrounded and a pissed off great dragon is sitting on your head or something. You're so deep in the drek no critical success is going to do, only the GM can pull you out of it with a little creative storytelling.

[Yerameyahu]

I think we're ignoring Hand of God because it's not important. If you ask 'how deadly is X edition?', Hand of God isn't the *most* relevant thing.

[WyldKnight]

OK, so Megu has pants on head retarded players and Sengir and Wyldknight apparently have evil GMs, where a player burning edge for a hand o' god might be greeted with banjo music and other Deliverance references until they tear up the character sheets to stop the narration.

Lmao, that mental image amused me.

No it's not that bad. One example is one of our PCs should have died when they fell out of a tall window, instead one of their legs was shattered and he needed to get a new one. Another example was a mage needing a Geas after a critically glitched spell almost killed him but he burned his edge. He lost faith in his casting after that near death experience so the geas was a good idea. The only time the really brutal disadvantages are added when the deaths were just terrible and completely the players fault but epic near deaths, one being where one PC held off 8 Red Sams with a broken leg because he was to heavy to be carried and stayed behind to buy us time, were met with very little damage after edge was burned. They took him captive but he was unconscious the whole time so they couldn't interrogate him and we rescued him.

To my GM is just mattered why you were about to die.

All your fault = bad stuff

Dice's Fault = Nothing that couldn't be worked around

Epic near death = usually nothing at all.