Just curious. Though please keep stories mercifully shot.

As a GM since second edition I haven't actually lost anybody permanently due to Edge/Karma, but people have been trauma patched, uncosious, and various states of maimed. I don't deus ex them though people have occasionaly gotten captured.

it really depens on form of the day . . some times i grumble about playing a troll and not getting to use my body to stave off damage . . other times the first damage I as a Troll take would have been enough to kill most everybody else . . and if i were to take the same damage again, it would kill me too . . we usually try to avoid such things, but they happen *g*
me being the combat monster i get hurt a little bit most often if the fighting gets serious . . and if the others decide to fight too, they get hurt AT LEAST a little bit due to them usually playing characters that were not meant to be in a fight anyway *g*

I only rough up my players when they deserve it, or if they like that sort of thing...

The characters on the other hand are an entirely different story.

Pah. I beat my players like red-headed stepchildren with a broken poolstick and a scourge.

The characters? They usually only die if they do something stupid.

In SR3, one of my players managed to get bashed to Serious + 3 in almost every fight, ever. It became something of a running joke, in fact. He was a super badass, had enough pain resistance it barely slowed him down, and never lost a fight -- but it seemed like it didn't matter what we were fighting, from a young dragon to just a couple of thugs in an alley, he'd always limp away from it at Serious + 3.

Bah-dum Pah!

I am a vicious bastard as a DM, but my players know and love this. The other main DM we have is a big softy when it comes to killing people in game(except me- I think he gets revenge) so the contrast is nice for everyone.

Chris

Last game I ran a game as a GM, we had a character get killed. He walked through two doors in a row that were both booby-trapped with concussion grenades, but somehow managed to remain standing, even though he was hurt badly. The real problem was when it came time for a showdown with a shotgun-wielding bodyguard who had set the traps. The character in question threw everything he had into a manabolt, which fizzled, and promptly took a shotgun blast to the face. It was luck of the dice more than anything, and thankfully the player in question took it rather well.

In one of our most recent games where I was a player, my mage had gotten pinned behind the counter at a local convenience store, and was surrounded by five local gangers. I proceeded to try to intimidate them, which failed miserably. I then got the crap shot out of me, and had no choice but to turn invisible and cower under the counter. Thankfully, my teammate had heard the commotion, and came in and mopped them up before I got geeked.

Our games tend to run on the more lethal side, but that's because we tend to let the dice fall where they may. To be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way...

Doesn't it work better if you go invisible before they start ventilating you?

Usually the bigger and less... Intelligent members of my group get shot up. I let my street samurai take some heat though, just because he has that deathwish and wants to prove to everybody that he's a badass. And sometimes - that's stupid. Really stupid. But makes for a fun game, at any rate.

Who sends the mage through the potentially booby-trapped doors first?

the smart troll *g*

I don't really rough up my players unless they or I screw up. I don't need to. To wit: one of the most intense nail biting scenes I ever ran, the kind we still talk about, was the finale of Queen Euphoria. Nobody was even injured. Afterwards my players said it was one of those edge of your chair scenes. Then again we play such a cinematic game it would make John Woo blush.

Isn't that normal?
In our current group, I'm the only one who isn't even remotely useful in combat and in all the time we've been playing I haven't even been hurt once...
Our sammy and adept on the other hand seem to go out of their way to catch bullets...

EDIT: Crud, keep pressing post too soon...
Anyway, the lethality in our games depends on the type of games...
In a dystopian, everyone is against you game, people die all the time...
In our current game, which is much more utopian and heroic, no one has died yet...
It also depends on the GM, when I GM I don't fudge rolls, if the pigmee with the sharp mango managed to do enough damage to kill you, tough luck, you're dead...
The guy that now GMs SR has the idea that death should only happen at dramatically appropriate moments, so he fudges rolls all the time to keep us alive during brawls...
I personally enjoy the idea that I could die at any time, the others seem to like the other way too...

Back when I was working full time at a gaming store (a period thankfully passed years ago), we developed the Gamer-B-Good stick, which was a 18" long section of thick aluminum square tube stock covered in caution tape attached to a spare pushbroom handle. Easily a Reach +1 implement (being around 6' long or so), it allowed us to enforce civility in the store without stepping out from behind the counter. The mere presence of it behind the counter was sadly more effective than the signs we posted reminding our "clients" to please bath regularly (the funk, the funk...oh lord the gamer funk).

Well, I don't know about the *player characters*, but the players get drop kicked whenever they misbehave.

There has been damage, but I've only taken the group through one and a half adventures so far, so my sample is small

It ain't a run till someone is bleeding.

as a player I have always enjoyed the "skin of your teeth" type runs and try to pass that on now that I am GMing.
I have set the payout bar a little high for the team and expect them to work for their .

other than that , I try to keep it fun.

rushing the HTR team in your skivvies wielding a broken beer bottle still gets you dead,period. there is only one reward for sheer stupidity.

I go by 'if the character deserved it' - and standing in front of a gun counts as 'deserving it'. My rule is no fatalities on the first run, but after that, it's all fair game, and I'm not above giving the PCs an impossible run.

The amount my players hurt depends on the lay of the dice.

I should make a note here that my dice really hate PCs.

The PCs bleed frequently.

The players he beats with a huge stick.

we players hurt because of the dice too . . .
metal dice with not rounded corners hurt x.x
thrown or used as caltrops on the ground . .

I was in the middle of negotiating with the store owner when the gang came in. It was bad timing more than anything, and I thought I could bluff my way out of it. My mistake...



It was his choice. He decided to split off from the team, and go after the mark himself. The rest of the group was still in an extended firefight outside the mansion. This run was botched from the very beginning, and the opposition knew they were coming and had time to plan accordingly.

Still made for a good game, though.

Aaron, I know what you mean. It is odd, in DnD I botch rolls constantly as a GM and my PCs survive impossible situations or I throw crits like no ones business and everyone dies to something easy. Except for one guy, my dice hate him... poor bastard.

In SR though, my dice hate everyone. I consistently roll 50%+ successes on everything as a GM and player. It is freaky, before we got into SR people made fun of me being a mage in DnD and preferring d6 spells, but I always said d6's love me. Apparently that carries over to Shadowrun too. If I had to guess I would say I'm currently at something of a 55% or 60% average of successes vs. dice rolled. It is insane.

Chris