“All right you are all in full
battle dress power armor with weapons stowed and belted into the drop
pods. They fire out of the ship like a bullet, hammering you back
into the cushioning. As they pass into the atmosphere your teeth
rattle as everything shakes and bucks. Suddenly warning lights come
on; you are getting fired upon by anti aircraft weapons in an attempt
to keep you from reaching the ground. I’ll roll once for each pod
and if they are hit by the incoming rounds then it’s game over for
them.”
“You mean for the NPC’s that are
coming down with us right?”
“No for every pod, including the
PC’s.”
“If we’re hit then we get a chance
to pull out of it and make it though right?”
“Nope it’s game over like I said.”
“Well that’s just stupid.”
Have you ever been in a situation like
this in a game? Have you ever put this situation upon your players
in a game? In case you haven’t noticed it’s not exactly a fair
thing and not really fun for the players. After all they’ve gone
through all the trouble of generating characters and then suddenly
BAM they may be killed off in a die roll that they can’t affect and
usually before they get to do anything much.
The usual argument back from the GM is
‘But that’s the way life is!’ Yeah well this isn’t life we
are playing is it. If all we wanted was life we would walk downtown
for a while and shoot some pool. But we’re not, we’re playing a
game and a game is supposed to be fun. That means fun for everybody.
This responsibility is in the hands of everyone playing but it’s
all under the control of one person.
The Gamemaster.
For the direction he takes the game
and the obstacles he puts into the way are what makes everything
work. He just needs to be aware of the way the players want to take
the game and make it work for them as well. This is a little fact
that is often overlooked by many GMs.
First thing off he needs to let the
players get to the adventure. What is the point of all your planning
ahead if nobody gets to fight their way through it? There doesn't
need to be any 'roll against instant death' within the first few
minutes of any game because then there is no point for people to
waste time making characters. In the above situation, yes it's
dangerous, yes if it were real anybody could be killed in an instant.
Do kill off an NPC or two especially if you built up a bit on them
so the players like that NPC. Make a point that it's going to be a
rough game but at least let them make it to the damn game.
People joke about how you can die
during character creation in the original Traveler rules. Don't
become a joke yourself by killing off characters as soon as they hit
the table.
