Working up some rules for my OSR sci-fi game and writing up the entry for Astronavigation. Failure puts the ship off course by 1d10 lightyears. Failure with a roll of 95-99% puts the starship in imminent danger (comes out in an asteroid field, or just inside the atmosphere of a planet, etc). I've chosen to make a fail with 100% indicates that the starship comes out of hyper and collides with something, taking serious damage, or they phase back into real space within an object (an asteroid, another vessel, a planet, etc.), killing everyone inside.
Would this be too much for most gamers in the modern world? TPKs through combat with a superior force is one thing, but being due to the failure of a skill check by one player could be devastating for some folks, maybe. Thoughts?
I would not do it, unless I gave grave warning as to what the consequences of a check could have..even then I would not kill the group, crashed, marooned, having to salvage a space hulk for repairs, etc. I try not to let something that big come down to a skill roll that seems to be a basic part of transportation. I have no issue killing a party when the risks are high, they are stupid, or are doing something brave, because it is only brave if you can die trying it. What you describe seems like killing the A-Team because BA Baracus made a left turn across traffic with a red light because he was arguing with the crazy guy.
No.
Going out into space to have adventures is fun. Designing a character, going out into space, and dying at random in the beginning is only an adventure in frustration.
A 100% is a chance to burn fate points, make extraordinary rolls, or maybe die in a glorious sacrifice. "Everyone man the lifeboats! I'll stay here! Somebody has to keep the hull together long enough for the rest to escape!"
(This from someone who actually enjoyed the original Traveller chargen sub game).
Quote from: Jamfke;1128357Working up some rules for my OSR sci-fi game and writing up the entry for Astronavigation. Failure puts the ship off course by 1d10 lightyears. Failure with a roll of 95-99% puts the starship in imminent danger (comes out in an asteroid field, or just inside the atmosphere of a planet, etc). I've chosen to make a fail with 100% indicates that the starship comes out of hyper and collides with something, taking serious damage, or they phase back into real space within an object (an asteroid, another vessel, a planet, etc.), killing everyone inside.
Would this be too much for most gamers in the modern world? TPKs through combat with a superior force is one thing, but being due to the failure of a skill check by one player could be devastating for some folks, maybe. Thoughts?
I wouldn't, especially if they're expected to do so as part of normal gameplay.
Teleportation had a death percentage in D&D, true. But that was because it was a shortcut and an escape clause. The death percentage kept it from being abused trivially - you couldn't just go "oh, it doesn't matter if we get into a tough spot, we'll just teleport out" or "oh, we'll just teleport down there". It was available as a last resort, and could be used if you thought the overall odds were better than of surviving the trip to where you were going, but it wasn't a freebie.
If the only way to get from planet to planet is Astronavigation, then basically having a 1% chance of dying every session isn't very good design. I'd think about the overall structure of the game (what do players spend time doing?) and not put up artificial barriers to getting to the gameplay. If gameplay is "each session, go to a planet, explore around, and then go back" (the space equivalent of a dungeon crawl) then having a percentage chance of just nuking the session
when there's no way to avoid it isn't fun.
If Astronavigation is something that the players
can choose to do, then it's fine for it to have more risk.
If I wanted something like that, I'd probably allow the Astronavigation roll to determine basic range that you can safely pilot, as well as extended range. Traveling within basic range is safe and not an issue, and no roll is required. Traveling outside of that range has whatever failure chances you want (though I'd still avoid the TPK on this one).
In this case the tradeoff would be that you can either do one big jump with an incurred risk, or several smaller jumps, which could have whatever complications are associated with refueling/etc. That makes it more of an interesting choice and less "roll every time to see if we end the campaign".
Also, I'd keep in mind that it's generally better to have negative consequences for bad
decisions rather than bad
rolls. (Though, to be clear, choosing to engage in a mechanic that can have a bad roll is a decision, if it's actually a decision. Llike, if you play Russian Roulette, that's a decision even if the roll ends up being the thing that kills you).
Quote from: Jamfke;1128357Would this be too much for most gamers in the modern world?
This is too much for gamers in
any world outside Paranoia and Crushed. Something where a slip up kills the player that slipped up, with possible collateral damage to bystanders. Is acceptable. You take the risk knowing theres a chance for a bad outcome. But something where one players slip-up kills everyone just for travelling? That is a bit far.
Sure there are players who want that sort of death world. But not many else will get on board. It would be like every time the party sets out to travel by train there is a chance for a train wreck that instantly kills the whole group. Does that sound fun? And I can tell you from experience that a 1% chance is not all that rare if it comes up fairly often. Or even if it does not! RNG will see to it that everyone gets offed ASAP. And if that chance is for every space trip then it
is going to happen.
Instead consider something bad. But not a campaign, and likely game, ender. The ship ends up intersecting something. But the crew, or at least the PCs are alive and can try to salvage some sort of rescue, escape, whatever.
This is actually the basis for on of the original Albedo adventures. A ship is sent to check on missing vessels and on arrival in system is promptly attacked by an unknown ship which leaves the PCs ship crippled and without main power, the bridge crew dead and most of the officers dead or severely injured. The remaining crew, including the PCs, find themselves drifting near the remnants of a prior space battle. Supplies are low as is power so the crews going to have to use whatever means they can think of to maneuver closer and scour the wrecks to find supplies and parts to save themselves. Failure means they all die. And this is the
introductory adventure!
Think about situations like that. The ship is crippled and things look dire. But there is still a chance, however slim, to make it.
Quote from: Jamfke;1128357I've chosen to make a fail with 100% indicates that the starship comes out of hyper and collides with something, taking serious damage, or they phase back into real space within an object (an asteroid, another vessel, a planet, etc.), killing everyone inside.
Quote from: oggsmash;1128359I would not do it, unless I gave grave warning as to what the consequences of a check could have..even then I would not kill the group, crashed, marooned, having to salvage a space hulk for repairs, etc. I try not to let something that big come down to a skill roll that seems to be a basic part of transportation. I have no issue killing a party when the risks are high, they are stupid, or are doing something brave, because it is only brave if you can die trying it.
Mostly +1 to this. Even if you have a party on board with the "space is dangerous" idea, it's probably more fun overall to have the cataclysmic event offer an opportunity to respond. It's certainly a viable middle road between 1 mistake TPK and plot armor. Maybe they do collide, or crash, and now are in a race against the clock to contain the damage and stabilize life support using the party's skills, creative thinking, and agency. Apollo 13 instead of immediate obliteration. They might still die, but they get a chance to respond.
Quote from: oggsmash;1128359What you describe seems like killing the A-Team because BA Baracus made a left turn across traffic with a red light because he was arguing with the crazy guy.
LOL :D Extending this analogy, maybe the van goes into a spin, BA has to pass some drive checks to keep it from colliding and Hannibal has to do some quick thinking to improvise tourniquets and stabilize the team.
Yeah, I was thinking that this would be too drastic as I was writing it. I'm going to include that properly plotting a course takes 3 full rounds to perform. As long as nothing dramatic is happening, they won't even need to roll. If the ship is under attack and needs to jump before the allotted time, then the 1% fail rule comes into play. I'm removing the TPK from the botched roll, but collisions with objects is still on the table with potential for the death of a character to be determined by what and where, and how much damage the ship takes upon impact and whether the characters are in or near the area.
BTW, has anyone ever done up an A-Team themed rpg?
These days yeah you'd get dumped on for having something like that in the game. Personally I know my group would just shrug and start making new characters. After all shit happens.
Quote from: Jamfke;1128379Yeah, I was thinking that this would be too drastic as I was writing it. I'm going to include that properly plotting a course takes 3 full rounds to perform. As long as nothing dramatic is happening, they won't even need to roll. If the ship is under attack and needs to jump before the allotted time, then the 1% fail rule comes into play. I'm removing the TPK from the botched roll, but collisions with objects is still on the table with potential for the death of a character to be determined by what and where, and how much damage the ship takes upon impact and whether the characters are in or near the area.
BTW, has anyone ever done up an A-Team themed rpg?
I think you mean has anyone done any rpgs that are not A Team themed. They are literally a balanced party of 4 adventurers moving from quest to quest. I say there are no A team themed rpgs, because the show A team was literally a show based on RPGs.
Strikes me as unusually harsh unless the PCs have made a series of bad decisions (for example, they've strapped Erin Palette's Turbo-Encabulator (http://lurkingrhythmically.blogspot.com/2014/01/traveller-tuesday-turbo-encabulator.html) to their ship and aren't letting the doctor run it).
Then, of course, feel free to put on the spiked strap-on (figuratively speaking).
I've run Traveller for decades.
I've had campaigns get vaporized because of a bad astronavigation roll.
It's fucking awesome.
If you're not familiar, Traveller uses jump technology. If you take lots of prep time and make sure you are jumping far away from any stellar bodies, your chance of a misjump is very low...but not zero. A misjump isn't auto death because there's the random chance you'll pop out somewhere okay. Also, if you conserve fuel and do smaller jumps, your journey takes longer, but you retain the ability to have a second jump instead of being left for dead in an empty region of space.
However...that's not how space adventurer's roll. Instead of careful navigation, they hit the jump drive while being chased by angry pirates or patrol ships while waaaaay to close to the planet. And who wants to spend money on jump drive maintenance when you can instead buy powered armor and plasma guns? And does anyone really want to waste precious skill points on Nav-3 when its way more fun to get SMG-3 so you can shoot more bad guys?
So those misjump moments are a truly gorgeous shock to the system that drives home the wretched horror of the universe. It's a very big, very empty, very dangerous place...and nobody's luck holds out forever.
It's one of the reasons I love running Salvage Crews as one shot adventurers where they find ships which misjumped. It's sobering to find a floating tomb.
Total Party Kills tend to be the opposite of fun. Something a GM should avoid at all costs.
This reminds me of a story from a friend's campaign. One person got his hands on an Old School Wish and said something along the lines of "I wish we had not done that" so the DM rolled the game back to the start of the campaign.
Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1128406Total Party Kills tend to be the opposite of fun. Something a GM should avoid at all costs.
As a Player, I'd disagree rather strongly. Not that I want TPK every session... or anything close. But the number of TPKs I've experienced can be counted on one and a half hands... and every one of them was some combination of hilarious/awesome/horrifying. All of them were memorable and still get talked about.
A GM who will never allow for such a possibility is someone I don't want to game with.
Same here. TPKs should not be just totally removed. Then theres no real risk.
Don't do it... not like that anyway.
Here are some reasons:
0.0000000000000000000042 percent of the universe contains matter. If you want to simulate a chance of collision perhaps you should make them roll a d100,000,000,000,000,000,000 instead, with the result of a 1 causing collision. Yes, I'm being silly. Even going into "theoretical hyperspace" directly through the core of a fictional galaxy might lower that die to a d1,000,000,000, at a guess. There is just too much damn space between celestial objects.
The second and most important reason is that OSR games should have as few skill checks as you can manage. What I would propose is that when the crew want to enter hyperspace, it takes 1d4 "space combat turns" to calculate a safe trajectory. If the crew just wait the turns out, the green light on the console comes on saying warp speed ready, and it works 100% this way. However, if the players want to go NOW, because perhaps they are being bombarded, then that's where you roll the percentile dice... Why? Because the players made that choice themselves, not the dice.
Likewise, if the players don't interrogate a dungeon's environment by asking questions of the DM, then when that player steps on a trap, that's when you roll the dice.
d20 Traveller has a chance of the ship exploding on jump entry.
Let me give an example where playing strictly by the rules would have fucked everything up with that kind of random TPK result.
d20 Traveller game, the PCs have just gotten enough information to start the adventure and are jumping to the destination system. We roll to see if the ship misjumps. It does. Badly, so bad that the result according to the dice roll and the rules is the destruction of the ship. Now, if I wasn't a Viking Hat GM, then I would have had to let the entire game fall apart before it had even begun in order to follow the rules.
Instead I fudged the dice because I am the arbiter of the rules and not a computer following a program. The game went on, the PCs ship did not explode killing all the characters. They instead had the mother of all misjumps and made a campaign out of getting back to their starting point.
sure have it happen but give players a chance to run for escape pods as the ship breaks up
TPKs are fine. They should just be the result of poor or risky player decisions, and preferably a chain of them.
As an example, rolling 1d6 and on a 1 you die at the beginning of every session is dumb.
If you choose to get in a game of Russian Roulette, you're dumb and should die on a 1 on a 1d6. But the GM saying that you need to do that out of the blue isn't really good gameplay.
If you make one poor/risky decision after another, and are eventually placed in a position where you either need to do something you don't want to do, or play Russian Roulette? Make your choice and take your chances. That's a series of bad luck and screwups, and you still have a choice.
Quote from: Graytung;1128477The second and most important reason is that OSR games should have as few skill checks as you can manage. What I would propose is that when the crew want to enter hyperspace, it takes 1d4 "space combat turns" to calculate a safe trajectory. If the crew just wait the turns out, the green light on the console comes on saying warp speed ready, and it works 100% this way. However, if the players want to go NOW, because perhaps they are being bombarded, then that's where you roll the percentile dice... Why? Because the players made that choice themselves, not the dice.
I 100% agree with this (and it's super similar to what I suggested earlier in the thread). Games usually are best when they're focused on player decisions rather than mathematical mechanics.
Quote from: jeff37923;1128478They instead had the mother of all misjumps and made a campaign out of getting back to their starting point.
Did your players put jump engine maintenance as their first expense priority after that incident?
After my group had a misjump TPK, the next campaign had the players being so meticulous about anything misjump related, and halfway through the campaign they were under heavy attack and had no choice but flip the jump switch and the pure panic at the table was hysterical for the navigation roll.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1128502Did your players put jump engine maintenance as their first expense priority after that incident?
After my group had a misjump TPK, the next campaign had the players being so meticulous about anything misjump related, and halfway through the campaign they were under heavy attack and had no choice but flip the jump switch and the pure panic at the table was hysterical for the navigation roll.
Yes. I'm not sure what I enjoy more: Players learning from their mistakes, or players over-correcting with their next characters.
It wasn't so much jump engine maintenance, it was way the T20 rules were written. The dice hated the Players that night. When I've brought up this incident before here, a lot of people said that it was poor writing of the rules. I think that the rule is fine, but should be adjusted by the referee for the PCs - especially when it comes to timing.
Exploding from a misjump is much more of a happy ending than what I put my players through when they misjumped into empty space. I gave them a 1 in 36 chance of rescue every week (aka, roll a 12 on 2D6 and a random ship would pop into the system) and let them roll the dice. Of course, we were tracking down supplies and fuel and air...and oh the cries of "Oh, why didn't we buy low passage bunks! Because we wanted more tonnage to trade stuff!" and then...the deciding how to go out and what messages to leave behind to whoever might find the ship in the future.
It was (hysterically) grim at the end. A couple PCs spaced themselves. The engineer opened the power plant to flood the ship with radiation so it would crap out the salvage value. The gunner blew away the pilot/navigator and painted messages on the walls in his blood then aced himself.
Good times.
The aftermath was a gas. Of course, the players wanted to keep rolling to see how long after their doom did another ship pop into the system. It took 3 more rolls and 300 ton subsidized merchant ship arrived...and that's where we started the new campaign!
Quote from: robiswrong;1128497TPKs are fine. They should just be the result of poor or risky player decisions, and preferably a chain of them.
As an example, rolling 1d6 and on a 1 you die at the beginning of every session is dumb.
If you choose to get in a game of Russian Roulette, you're dumb and should die on a 1 on a 1d6. But the GM saying that you need to do that out of the blue isn't really good gameplay.
Yeah, I agree with all that. Most of the TPKs I've seen were a domino of one guy or two PCs dying, and the others fighting on rather than running away. Sometimes (the giant rabbit!) seemed heroic... other times it was just down to some dumb assumption that they were 'supposed' to win.
Indeed.
Quote from: Simlasa;1128541Yeah, I agree with all that. Most of the TPKs I've seen were a domino of one guy or two PCs dying, and the others fighting on rather than running away. Sometimes (the giant rabbit!) seemed heroic... other times it was just down to some dumb assumption that they were 'supposed' to win.
What I find the most fascinating to watch are the times when the players are actively aware of this, but fight on to their doom regardless. "These orcs are kicking our asses, we need to fall back and escape!" A combat round later: "Bob's down! We didn't think we could win this with him, but now we have to stay and fight to the end without him, or else he'll be captured!"
A culture that develops an hyperspace engine that can cause TPK one every one-hundreds jumps will not use it until "failsafe tech" is also developed. Maybe a special sensor can "scan" the arrival point 1/1,000,000 secs before the spaceship emerges, judge if there is a danger, and instruct the on-board AI to either move accordingly the arrival point or to leave the ship in hyperspace and warn the crew about what is happening.
If the party wants to buy an old bucket of nails without failsafe tech, then it becomes their problem.
Quote from: Reckall;1128702A culture that develops an hyperspace engine that can cause TPK one every one-hundreds jumps will not use it until "failsafe tech" is also developed. Maybe a special sensor can "scan" the arrival point 1/1,000,000 secs before the spaceship emerges, judge if there is a danger, and instruct the on-board AI to either move accordingly the arrival point or to leave the ship in hyperspace and warn the crew about what is happening.
If the party wants to buy an old bucket of nails without failsafe tech, then it becomes their problem.
That's an interesting point. On the one hand, space shuttles and space missions: national efforts spanning years of work with the best engineers the country has to offer.
On the other hand, cars: when introduced, much faster than previous modes of transport. Hideously unsafe because we hadn't the damndest idea how to make them safe yet. ~90 years in, we're still improving the safety, and yet the driver of a car can still readily do the equivalent of a jump straight into a planetary body, killing all the occupants.
In the middle is airplanes: tightly regulated, highly engineered, very safe, with the very best in safety and tech (commercial jets) way out of the price range of small crews. And, again, the accessible ones nose plant, frequently relative to commercial airliners. Part of it is also the difference in training between commercial pilots (e.g. often former military) vs. Joe Q. Rando who has enough money to buy a plane.
So in addition to the monetary dimension, maybe there's also an arc of development/market availability question, for what kind of safety/failsafe tech is available.
And then there's the consideration of what happens when the failsafe tech goes haywire (e.g. AF 447). But I'm rambling, so I'll stop. :D
Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1128705On the other hand, cars: when introduced, much faster than previous modes of transport. Hideously unsafe because we hadn't the damndest idea how to make them safe yet. ~90 years in, we're still improving the safety, and yet the driver of a car can still readily do the equivalent of a jump straight into a planetary body, killing all the occupants.
In the middle is airplanes: tightly regulated, highly engineered, very safe, with the very best in safety and tech (commercial jets) way out of the price range of small crews. And, again, the accessible ones nose plant, frequently relative to commercial airliners. Part of it is also the difference in training between commercial pilots (e.g. often former military) vs. Joe Q. Rando who has enough money to buy a plane.
1: earlier cars were probably safer due to the lower speeds. Over time we increased the speeds but with speed came an increasing lack of safety as its not the tech thats the problem. Its the driver. Ive been in two auto accidents, one I was too young to remember. In both cases it was some maniac running a red light. A costuming friend of mines fiance was for all intents and purposes murdered by a repeat drunk driver who ran them over as they were crossing the street. Sure, the tech can fail and fail spectacularly. But far more prevalent its the driver.
2: Theres a rather interesting youtube channel that documents air disasters and in a majority the problem was faulty maintenance. Not the actual tech itself. In one case this lead to a literal ghost plane flying along with everyone on board dead due to a poorly installed altimeter I believe that caused a cascade of disasters.
This is something you learn early on. Your equipment is only as good as the maintenance crew and one slip up can cause disaster. And due to the complexity of some tech now it can be thrown out of wack, sometimes disasterously by just one damn screw.
Killing the whole party every d100th time they get in a train, car, or space ship, or just try to cross the street, might be "realistic" but its sure as heck not very fun in a game. Unless its the Wandering Damage Table...
Quote4: Your character cuts himself while shaving; consult Limb Loss Subtable.
High tech failure rates may also need to take into account corporate malfeasance as well.....
Quote from: Omega;11287091: earlier cars were probably safer due to the lower speeds. Over time we increased the speeds but with speed came an increasing lack of safety as its not the tech thats the problem. Its the driver. Ive been in two auto accidents, one I was too young to remember. In both cases it was some maniac running a red light. A costuming friend of mines fiance was for all intents and purposes murdered by a repeat drunk driver who ran them over as they were crossing the street. Sure, the tech can fail and fail spectacularly. But far more prevalent its the driver.
I guess my points weren't clear.
Point #1 is that an enormous amount of modern automotive safety mechanisms were introduced well after the car was commonplace: the seatbelt, head/neck support, air bags, side curtain air bags, crumple zones, energy dissipation and crash management, alternating windshield wipers, tire blowout detection, crash tests, automatic collision detection, firewalls/fire mitigation, how to protect the fuel tank, backup cameras, puncture resistant tires, traction control, etc. Only some of these are onboard computer related (e.g. collision detection), many of them are better modeling and better understanding of failure modes. This is with respect to Reckall's point that cultures with hyperspace tech would not let said tech be used until the safety corners were filed off. :D
Point #2 is exactly your point: the ability of people to fuck things up continues in spite of these safety developments. This was meant to support the idea that there's interesting risk space even with some amount of safety mechanisms in place, potentially even large ones. Or not. You know, do the right thing for the party/campaign/etc. But it could be interesting to toy around with.
Quote from: Omega;11287092: Theres a rather interesting youtube channel that documents air disasters and in a majority the problem was faulty maintenance. Not the actual tech itself. In one case this lead to a literal ghost plane flying along with everyone on board dead due to a poorly installed altimeter I believe that caused a cascade of disasters.
This is something you learn early on. Your equipment is only as good as the maintenance crew and one slip up can cause disaster. And due to the complexity of some tech now it can be thrown out of wack, sometimes disasterously by just one damn screw.
Yes, totally agreed. The majority of them are due to tragically simple mistakes or hubris, rather than unique and interesting failures of high tech systems. (The Concorde crash being caused by a part falling off of a Continental MD-80 comes to mind.) Still, there is also the potential of the fancy system going haywire, and what happens then: the AF 447 crash is one such example.
Quote from: Omega;1128709Killing the whole party every d100th time they get in a train, car, or space ship, or just try to cross the street, might be "realistic" but its sure as heck not very fun in a game. Unless its the Wandering Damage Table...
Yeah, by no means do I intend to dictate to a GM that hyperspace travel needs the foibles of historical tech development projected onto it. But depending on the circumstances of the tech and campaign, it might be an interesting space to play with and take inspiration from real human history and mistakes. Or not! That was my intended suggestion. :D
Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1128712Point #1 is that an enormous amount of modern automotive safety mechanisms were introduced well after the car was commonplace: the seatbelt, head/neck support, air bags, side curtain air bags, crumple zones, energy dissipation and crash management, alternating windshield wipers, tire blowout detection, crash tests, automatic collision detection, firewalls/fire mitigation, how to protect the fuel tank, backup cameras, puncture resistant tires, traction control, etc. Only some of these are onboard computer related (e.g. collision detection), many of them are better modeling and better understanding of failure modes. This is with respect to Reckall's point that cultures with hyperspace tech would not let said tech be used until the safety corners were filed off. :D
Point #2 is exactly your point: the ability of people to fuck things up continues in spite of these safety developments. This was meant to support the idea that there's interesting risk space even with some amount of safety mechanisms in place, potentially even large ones. Or not. You know, do the right thing for the party/campaign/etc. But it could be interesting to toy around with.
Don't forget, government fuel efficiency requirements have also reduced the safety of modern cars by forcing the manufactures to constantly cut down on anything that adds weight. Just think of how safe you would be in a car from the 50s with all of today's safety features added to it.
Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1128705On the other hand, cars: when introduced, much faster than previous modes of transport. Hideously unsafe because we hadn't the damndest idea how to make them safe yet. ~90 years in, we're still improving the safety, and yet the driver of a car can still readily do the equivalent of a jump straight into a planetary body, killing all the occupants.
If we're still talking about a 1% chance of a catastrophic failure with each trip, then I disagree. I travel to/from work about 300 days/year. That's 600 trips. By raw numbers, I should have 6 catastrophic events per year, or roughly 1 per two months. So, no, a !% rate of catastrophic failure for routine space travel wouldn't be even remotely acceptable to a space-going society.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1128720If we're still talking about a 1% chance of a catastrophic failure with each trip, then I disagree. I travel to/from work about 300 days/year. That's 600 trips. By raw numbers, I should have 6 catastrophic events per year, or roughly 1 per two months. So, no, a !% rate of catastrophic failure for routine space travel wouldn't be even remotely acceptable to a space-going society.
No, I'm just spitballing about the in-game state space for hyperspace travel to have catastrophic failure at some nonzero probability, vs. the idea of the society being so technologically advanced that catastrophe is ruled out at least in practice. I don't mean to be prescriptive about how dangerous (or not) it should be.
What if the 1% misjump rate was as good as it got?
What if "failsafe tech" was never developed...perhaps because jumpspace was just too alien.
There are always humans crazy, desperate or greedy enough to take those risks. Look at our own Age of Exploration. Only a lunatic would get aboard a wooden sailboat and decide to sail beyond the map. But there was the promise of gold, spices and fame...so they went and most died.
In my view of Traveller and the Imperium, they have accepted that misjumps happen. It's just part of the nature of space travel. Shit happens. That's why I gave a 1 in 36 chance each week of a rescue ship popping into the empty system. I assume subsector patrol ships do a tour of empty systems on their journeys because they know its possible for a misjumped ship to be needing rescue.
Quote from: Reckall;1128702A culture that develops an hyperspace engine that can cause TPK one every one-hundreds jumps will not use it until "failsafe tech" is also developed. Maybe a special sensor can "scan" the arrival point 1/1,000,000 secs before the spaceship emerges, judge if there is a danger, and instruct the on-board AI to either move accordingly the arrival point or to leave the ship in hyperspace and warn the crew about what is happening.
If the party wants to buy an old bucket of nails without failsafe tech, then it becomes their problem.
Someone is unfamiliar with the setting of Warhammer 40,000. :D
The other factor may be tech thats in use but either not understood fully as it was gifted by others, or discovered derilect. Or some key knowledge may have been lost. Like in Battletech. Or even 40k.
I'd say don't make it a one bad roll and you're all dead situation, make it one bad roll and you're in a situation that has a chance of getting out with ships and selves more or less intact. I'd have jump accidents leave permanent scars on bodies, psyches and ships, killing pc's quickly is not the worst thing you can do to them. *evil chuckle*
Quote from: Jamfke;1128357Working up some rules for my OSR sci-fi game and writing up the entry for Astronavigation. Failure puts the ship off course by 1d10 lightyears. Failure with a roll of 95-99% puts the starship in imminent danger (comes out in an asteroid field, or just inside the atmosphere of a planet, etc). I've chosen to make a fail with 100% indicates that the starship comes out of hyper and collides with something, taking serious damage, or they phase back into real space within an object (an asteroid, another vessel, a planet, etc.), killing everyone inside.
Would this be too much for most gamers in the modern world? TPKs through combat with a superior force is one thing, but being due to the failure of a skill check by one player could be devastating for some folks, maybe. Thoughts?
I think the problem is your number. A 1 in 100 chance of a total party kill, seems rather high for navigation. My suggestion would be to keep the possibility bu but make some tiered tables so you can make the chance of that much more remote. Alternatively, have it trigger a series of choices the navigator needs to make in order to avert the TPK (so there is at least a sense that it is actually in the hands of the player and not in a random die roll). Not sure if there is an elegant way to work choices into it or not.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1128813I think the problem is your number. A 1 in 100 chance of a total party kill, seems rather high for navigation. My suggestion would be to keep the possibility bu but make some tiered tables so you can make the chance of that much more remote. Alternatively, have it trigger a series of choices the navigator needs to make in order to avert the TPK (so there is at least a sense that it is actually in the hands of the player and not in a random die roll). Not sure if there is an elegant way to work choices into it or not.
In Star Frontiers there is the factor of "risk jumping". This being attempting a trip without the required time taken to do all the calculations. The less time you take, the higher the chance of something going wrong.
Along charted routes and taking the required time, the chance is 100% of success. But if the route is not charted and/or less than the required time is taken, then the chance is lower.
If the astrogator takes the required time but its an unknown route then there is a 5% chance of misjump. If they take less than the required time then the chance of success drops, with a 100% chance of failure if takes less than 2 hours/ly plotting the course.
A misjump was not ever fatal. But if the crew jumped with low fuel then it could pose a serious problem if they were stranded someplace off the known routes. So bad things could happen of the players did things to make them more likely to happen.
On the other hand there was a 6% chance of a starliner having some sort of problem each trip. 8% for freighters, 18% for freighters with high risk cargo. Mostly external for either, like enemy ships, but a 2% chance of a delay due to engine trouble was possible.
Quote from: Omega;1128798The other factor may be tech thats in use but either not understood fully as it was gifted by others, or discovered derilect. Or some key knowledge may have been lost. Like in Battletech. Or even 40k.
Jokes aside, misjumps in BT are damned rare. Usually they're the result of:
(a) experimental technology (the Living Legends module)
(b) damage or interference with the K-F drive (Far Country, Fortress Republic)
I'm not even certain if BT has rules for if a misjump occurs. I need to ask.
Quote from: Jamfke;1128357Working up some rules for my OSR sci-fi game and writing up the entry for Astronavigation. Failure puts the ship off course by 1d10 lightyears. Failure with a roll of 95-99% puts the starship in imminent danger (comes out in an asteroid field, or just inside the atmosphere of a planet, etc). I've chosen to make a fail with 100% indicates that the starship comes out of hyper and collides with something, taking serious damage, or they phase back into real space within an object (an asteroid, another vessel, a planet, etc.), killing everyone inside.
Would this be too much for most gamers in the modern world? TPKs through combat with a superior force is one thing, but being due to the failure of a skill check by one player could be devastating for some folks, maybe. Thoughts?
The thing to ask yourself is, is a space-faring civilization even possible with one out of every hundred jumps ending in destruction?
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1128896Jokes aside, misjumps in BT are damned rare. Usually they're the result of:
(a) experimental technology (the Living Legends module)
(b) damage or interference with the K-F drive (Far Country, Fortress Republic)
I'm not even certain if BT has rules for if a misjump occurs. I need to ask.
I have the books and far as I recall it is mentioned as happening more than a few times. But no actual rules for it. Essentially a background boogyman. At least one adventure and one book kicks off as the result of someone elses or their own misjump turning into a discovery.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1128921The thing to ask yourself is, is a space-faring civilization even possible with one out of every hundred jumps ending in destruction?
Well that depends on the roller. If its a player then the chance is actually 50%. And if its a program then the chance is 150%. :cool:
(no really. Im playing a PC game trying to craft an item with a 1% chance of success. I am at try number 141... :()
Quote from: CRKrueger;1128921The thing to ask yourself is, is a space-faring civilization even possible with one out of every hundred jumps ending in destruction?
I wonder what the return rate for wooden ships was for the Age of Sail. And if the ship did return, what percentage of crew were alive?
Also, there's the issue of motivation.
If Earth is a dying, post-apocalyptic nightmare, and we find a fresh utopia world to destroy, I mean colonize, then many people would take the 1% risk. Even if the Earth wasn't dying, but just some form of dystopia, there would be people motivated enough to take crazy risks.
Its important to note that a Misjump in Classic Traveller isn't auto-death. Since the Imperium is heavily settled space, you have a good chance of simply misjumping into the WRONG system, possibly quite far from your original destination, but its still a system that probably has a gas giant or a planet with ice or water. In Traveller, a misjump has a possibility of death, but a larger possibility of inconvenience.
After a quick conversation with the BattleTech guru friend of mine:
BT really only has rules for misjumping at the strategic level (i.e. moving multiple Jumpships around, Succession Wars-game style bullshit). Otherwise, it's just a plot device, not something that can routinely come up on a dice roll.
tfw you realize Battletech's FTL is safer than Traveller's.
I'd say any fundamental activity (necessary to function in the campaign, like space travel in a sci fi campaign) having a chance of just automatically killing an entire party by sheerly random chance with no way to prevent it and nothing the PCs do factoring into it, is an example of flawed game design.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1129645I'd say any fundamental activity (necessary to function in the campaign, like space travel in a sci fi campaign) having a chance of just automatically killing an entire party by sheerly random chance with no way to prevent it and nothing the PCs do factoring into it, is an example of flawed game design.
Traveler's character generation is like this. So is a lot of its other system. Which is what turned me off the system completely.
TPK is boring. All it does is arbitrarily ruin the fun everybody was having. And honestly? I think it's a sign of really bad GMing.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1129645I'd say any fundamental activity (necessary to function in the campaign, like space travel in a sci fi campaign) having a chance of just automatically killing an entire party by sheerly random chance with no way to prevent it and nothing the PCs do factoring into it, is an example of flawed game design.
Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1129677Traveler's character generation is like this. So is a lot of its other system. Which is what turned me off the system completely.
TPK is boring. All it does is arbitrarily ruin the fun everybody was having. And honestly? I think it's a sign of really bad GMing.
I find it to be more of a GMing IQ test. If you are so inflexible as to allow the RAW to end a game before it even starts, then you probably shouldn't be a GM.
EDIT: Death in character creation was designed to balance out characters who lived long and maxed out on skills with a chance of something bad happening. Everyone I knew who played Classic Traveller when it came out had enough common sense to understand that you ignored character death in creation if you needed to start playing quickly.
Death in character creation has become such a joke that I bought a t-shirt from Marc Miller's Far Future Enterprises that has "I Died In Character Creation" emblazoned on the front right above the Traveller brand.
Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1129677Traveler's character generation is like this. So is a lot of its other system. Which is what turned me off the system completely.
Actually, to be pedantic, death doesn't occur in chargen, the following quote from 1977 Classic Traveller comes after rolling attributes and naming the character:
QuoteACQUIRING SKILLS AND EXPERTISE
A newly generated character is singularly unequipped to deal with the adven-turing world, having neither the expertise nor the experience necessary for the active life. In order to acquire some experience, it is possible to enlist in a service.
So you don't actually NEED to join a service and serve terms with a risk of character death! Further, the death is actually a feature allowing the player some control over his character, this text from the section on Initial Character Generation (rolling up attributes):
QuoteObviously, it is possible for a player to generate a character with seemingly unsatisfactory values; nevertheless, each player should use his character as gener-ated. The experience procedures and acquired skills table offer a genuine opportunity to enhance values, given only time and luck. Should a player consider his character to be so poor as to be beyond help, he should consider joining the accident-prone Scout Corps, with a subconscious view to suicide.
Yup, right there in the rules, you can attempt to suicide a character with poor attributes!
More to the point, as Jeff mentions, the risk of death serves a purpose of putting pressure on the player to not seek endless terms to get tons of skills. It's a totally functional part of the game.
QuoteTPK is boring. All it does is arbitrarily ruin the fun everybody was having. And honestly? I think it's a sign of really bad GMing.
Oh, and death in chargen in Traveller is of course not a TPK. Further, a TPK isn't automatically boring. If it occurs because the players chose to risk all for some particular gain, a TPK could actually be rewarding, it doesn't need to be a let down or cause the campaign to end. And there are some players for whom the fun is ruined if the GM fudges to prevent a TPK.
However, The Pundit says it really well. A TPK that is unavoidable because the players must take the risk for the campaign to progress in any reasonable fashion is a problem. Traveller DOES actually have a bit of a problem here in that you can not eliminate the chance of misjump unless you ONLY visit world with type A or B star ports. Even a scout ship that doesn't use refined fuel still has a 1 in 36 chance of misjump in the 1977 rules. I think later rules removed the risk unnecessarily to the point of making the source of fuel pretty much irrelevant. I have house rules that make it possible for the players to manage the risk better AND also make it much more unlikely to actually get completely stranded.
My experience with Traveller comes from the little black original books and the godawful Megatraveller. And a GM that sucked worse than any black hole.
I do own Dark Conspiracy. Which is Traveller derived. But I got it more for the setting. Even though I really hate the system.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1129645I'd say any fundamental activity (necessary to function in the campaign, like space travel in a sci fi campaign) having a chance of just automatically killing an entire party by sheerly random chance with no way to prevent it and nothing the PCs do factoring into it, is an example of flawed game design.
Classic Traveller's misjump chance does involve PC choice on numerous levels.
1) You can spend your credits on jump drive maintenance.
2) You can choose to jump far from any planetary body.
3) You can spend the needed time on your navigation plan.
4) You can choose to jump less than your maximum so you have enough fuel for a Jump-1 if an accident does happen.
But in actual play, players spend their credits on plasma guns, antigrav belts and battle dress, then take risky jumps because who wants to wait an extra day in system, and the whole point of that damn big engine is to jump as far as it can.
And usually, that's still all cool and jumps go just fine, but sometimes the dice gods fail to smile upon their fate.
Sorry to post late to this party, buy Necrotic Gnome OSE is going to release two psionic type of classes for B/X or e1 games.
https://necroticgnome.com/blogs/news/carcass-crawler-old-school-essentials-zine-issue-1-preview
There is a Hephaestan that is a elf-type race that has telepathic abilities, and a kineticist class.
As a matter of course I would never do a, "Oh, you rolled 01? Rocks fall, the party dies." I would still have disaster strike if someone managed to mess up a significant piloting check, but not in an instant-death way. Back in an Alternity game I was running the party managed to get their ship blown up to the point that most of it was open to space, they had to do a lot of scrounging and jury-rigging to set up a small area with enough oxygen to make it back to civilization.
I would make that catastrophic 1% failure chance something that wasn't immediately fatal, but lead to a game play challenge that might yet be fatal. So getting stuck somehow in hyperspace and having to power up the drive a second time and punch through, partially phasing with an asteroid so now your ship is hanging off an asteroid and maybe the airlock's covered up, coming out somewhere completely different than expected (either in deep space so they have to make some hard choices about cold sleep, or if in-system somewhere very far away from where they want to be), and so on.
If I get to run Traveller again and I get a catastrophic misjump I'm going to convert and run Dead Planet (adventure for Mothership) rather than just close the book and tell the group they're dead.
Quote from: Valatar on June 19, 2021, 01:45:57 PM
As a matter of course I would never do a, "Oh, you rolled 01? Rocks fall, the party dies." I would still have disaster strike if someone managed to mess up a significant piloting check, but not in an instant-death way. Back in an Alternity game I was running the party managed to get their ship blown up to the point that most of it was open to space, they had to do a lot of scrounging and jury-rigging to set up a small area with enough oxygen to make it back to civilization.
When I was running Shackled City, the whole team got TPK when they thought they can handle a werven. They were over confident and self produced a comedy of errors. Fortunately one the characters had a slow regeneration of 1 hp per round. she was the last one standing was was picked up in the wervens clawsto be taken back for food. The den was miles away and I just saw the look on everyone's face go all despaired. At that point I changed plans and had the character fall down to the earth bouncing on the side of the mountain. when she recovered after an hour or sho, she had to lug back the dead bodies back to town from the mountain top that was a days hike away. Oh the guards men made her pay a fee for bringing dead bodies back into town.
Good times
Shadowrun 2e...
Character used a grenade in the hallway of a secured building featuring reinforced walls,, floors,, and ceilings. He didn't realize just how fucked-up the chunky salsa rules were as the blast rebounded from 4 surfaces and killed three party members (including grenade guy).
In my opinion, a TPK means "end of campaign"
GM "But we have an entire book left, and it was the last boss of this book"
as a player: "I dont see the attraction of rolling up an entire new party just to go in and avenge the 5 people lying dead on the floor and continue their quest"
Quote from: Wntrlnd on June 19, 2021, 07:04:58 PM
In my opinion, a TPK means "end of campaign"
GM "But we have an entire book left, and it was the last boss of this book"
as a player: "I dont see the attraction of rolling up an entire new party just to go in and avenge the 5 people lying dead on the floor and continue their quest"
Totally fitting though if the game is Only War and you're just thr next squad of nominated Imperial Guardsmen to be sent into the meat grinder.
Quote from: Jamfke on April 30, 2020, 01:21:31 PM
Working up some rules for my OSR sci-fi game and writing up the entry for Astronavigation. Failure puts the ship off course by 1d10 lightyears. Failure with a roll of 95-99% puts the starship in imminent danger (comes out in an asteroid field, or just inside the atmosphere of a planet, etc). I've chosen to make a fail with 100% indicates that the starship comes out of hyper and collides with something, taking serious damage, or they phase back into real space within an object (an asteroid, another vessel, a planet, etc.), killing everyone inside.
Would this be too much for most gamers in the modern world? TPKs through combat with a superior force is one thing, but being due to the failure of a skill check by one player could be devastating for some folks, maybe. Thoughts?
My answer to the general question you pose in the subject line is very different from the specific one you're posing here.
I don't think I would get behind the wheel of an automobile if I thought there was a 1% chance of collision every time I drove somewhere. Let alone if there was a 1% chance of killing me and everyone around me. You might have recognize that what's at issue here is not at all the question you're asking. It's whether or not you're even using an appropriate game mechanic with appropriate outcomes for the activity.
One of the things I really like about old school D&D, and perhaps much of OSR has failed to appreciate it, is you're not just describing and parametizing the character. To a great degree, you're saying something about the world. When AD&D says your character with a 16 STR can force open doors on a 1-3 on d6 and has a 10% chance to bend bars/lift gates, this is not just a reflection of how strong your character is. It's also a reflection of how difficult stuck doors are to open and gates are to lift.
Now also consider the same character with the same strength, what you can break and how much you can lift might vary somewhat from one moment to the next. But not so much that you would be able to lift a gate one day, and fail to lift that same gate the next day. Or that you might bash in a door on the first try one day, but that same door will take 4 tries the next. When you're making these checks, you're simultaneously writing the world itself. You're strong enough to lift 10% of all the gates in the world. We're rolling the dice to determine if you're strong enough to lift this particular gate. In other words, we're not actually checking your strength. We're checking the difficulty of the gate.
I am fully aware this pecker slaps right across the eyes the philosophy that many old school gamers hold, that we're not inventing the world on the fly as we play, how difficult that gate to open is determined in advance and reflected with a sit mod, and your character's attributes are just that--Your. Character's. Attributes. And that's a perfectly fine and intuitive way to play. The problem from where I sit is it just doesn't look to me like most RPG mechanics are oriented towards that philosophy. The designers may hold that philosophy, but they carelessly copied what came before.
As to whether a fumble on a skill roll leading to a TPK is too harsh. Well, I would say this. When I include a small chance of instant death, it's generally intended to be a deterrent. PCs should never do this thing on purpose. For instance, falling damage in my D&D games are less harsh than most (d6 per 10', not cumulative), the idea being to give PCs a reasonably fair chance at surviving a fall without having to give in to hit point inflation. But at the same time, "Falls from Height" (greater than 40') all carry with them a probability of instant death in my campaigns. The idea is no character would jump off a cliff as a short cut thinking they have enough of a hit point cushion to take the fall. Even a small chance of instant death is too much risk. But it still comes up if a character falls accidentally or by trap. It makes these hazards very deadly.
To me, it seems what you're doing is a perfectly fine mechanic for an astronavigator setting in a course to a place he or she is unfamiliar with. The message it would send to players is "You should not do this thing. You don't get to just skip exploring unfamiliar space." This could organically create specialists within the game. Need to get out to a distant space station? Maybe hire a navigator who used to make supply runs there. And then by the end of whatever adventure is happening there, at that point, the PC navigator will be familiar with it and can always get back there in the future without chance for disaster. Now if something crazy happens. Like the PCs fail to stop the villain with his doomsday device that causes the sun of one of the inner worlds to collapse into a blackhole and now the hole is spreading as it swallows up more and more mass of the surrounding systems, hey, maybe risking that jump into the unknown reaches is worth doing. At the end of the day, 1% chance of TPK is better than 100% chance of TPK.
TPK shows that the GM has utterly failed the game group. It also shows the GM doesn't place any value on the characters the players went to the trouble of creating.
Quote from: Darrin Kelley on June 20, 2021, 06:38:13 PM
TPK shows that the GM has utterly failed the game group. It also shows the GM doesn't place any value on the characters the players went to the trouble of creating.
Darrin's players: We want a staff of the magi in the next room.
Darrin Kelley: What are you talking about? You don't get to decide what's in the next room.
Darrin's players: No staff? We jump off the cliff.
<Party falls, everyone dies>
Darrin Kelley: Oh noes I utterly failed my game group. Next time, I'll make sure there will be a staff of the magi and a vorpal sword in every room!
I don't think TPk is a failing on the DM part. Sometimes the dice gods fail to smile on the players. I have played in a few campaigns that came close or were a TPK because of bad dice rolls. With the DM/GM telling us upfront he would not fudge dice rolls and all rolls done in front of the players.
Sometimes plays do stupid things at the table and even when warned repeatedly by the DM/GM that the encounters are tough still do the truly boneheaded thing and insist on commit collective suicide by stupid player decisions. When the TPK is avoidable especially on the players part if your going to do the adult equivalent of acting like a child and taking your toys home..then good riddance to immature rubbish.
If you want the equivalent of participation trophies in gaming look elsewhere then my table. Now it's another when the DM/ GM stacks the deck against the players and no matter what they do or how smart they play or retreat it's a TPK. Then yeah fuck that bullshit and screw that look for another table.
Acting like a child in a. Adult body because of an avoidable TPk grow a CB par and grow the fuck up.
Quote from: Darrin Kelley on June 20, 2021, 06:38:13 PM
TPK shows that the GM has utterly failed the game group. It also shows the GM doesn't place any value on the characters the players went to the trouble of creating.
Have you considered the possibility that a TPK means the game group has failed the GM? Or that the Players don't place any value on the characters that they created?
Automatic TPKs are bad, but as far as a TPK happening because of one character's mistake... that sounds more like a decision.
For example, let's say the party is level 1 and sneaking past an owlbear. Fighting it means they're surely doomed or near doomed. One player gets the bright idea to throw a stone at the owlbear for laughs. The owlbear wakes up and kills all the party members in its fury.
Should the rest of the party have suffered from that player's decision?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 21, 2021, 12:51:52 PM
Should the rest of the party have suffered from that player's decision?
Do you allow the rest of the party to benefit from one player's decision?
The answers to both your question and mine would have to be the same in any game I'm running or playing.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 21, 2021, 12:51:52 PM
Automatic TPKs are bad, but as far as a TPK happening because of one character's mistake... that sounds more like a decision.
For example, let's say the party is level 1 and sneaking past an owlbear. Fighting it means they're surely doomed or near doomed. One player gets the bright idea to throw a stone at the owlbear for laughs. The owlbear wakes up and kills all the party members in its fury.
Should the rest of the party have suffered from that player's decision?
My serious answer as a GM; the owlbear unleashes it's full fury during the first round on the offending idiot who threw the rock, even if it's wasting attacks on the corpse.
If the rest of the party takes that round to flee, they survive and the owlbear enjoys its meal. If they instead attack the owlbear then the dice fall where they may, but the other players at least got a choice in the outcome.
My basic principle is that PC death should not, generally, come down to a single point of failure over which a PC has no control (and unless the dice are loaded that includes any single dice roll). A player misses their perception check and is instantly crushed by a falling rock is certainly a realistic outcome, but it's not a particularly fun one generally.*
But if they also get some sort "Dodge" check to avoid the falling rock, you're now up to two points of failure. If there's a damage roll reflecting how the rock struck them (low damage they actually dodged after all but bruised or tore a muscle in the effort... medium damage a limb might be caught and crushed... etc.) you're now up to three points of failure.
Even better is if the PC has some sort of choice to make; the rock starts to fall and they can either dive for the closest point (low difficulty, maybe even automatic) and be separated from the party by the rock or they can dive the further distance back to the party (higher difficulty) but be with the party presuming they succeed. Now their death isn't random bad luck, it was the choice to go for the higher difficulty path that doomed them.
For a group TPK I'd really need it to involve failures from multiple group members (probably not all, but more than one) for failure to occur. Like put the TPK on the table for a rushed jump from a cold engine start. Now the navigator AND the engineer have to be cutting corners on the attempt and perhaps the captain as well for giving the order (and the navigator and engineer choosing to follow it). Multiple points of failure just really sells the idea that the TPK deserved to happen vs. being a random fluke.
* exception example; you're running a meat grinder dungeon with players rolling up new characters every few minutes and describing the cruel and unusual deaths of these characters they haven't even bothered to name is half the fun).
Personally I love stuff like this in games. It makes it more interesting, more exciting, and often gives you a great tale to tell. I think it would come down to the probabilities and how frequently it comes up.
When the PC's ship misjumps, that should be an adventure unto itself.
There will be searching for spare parts to repair the damaged systems. Searching for fuel. Skill chrcks to go EVA and repair the stuff on the hull. Possible exploration of previously undiscovered worlds, perhaps a graveyard of ships that got lost in that same spot due to mis-jumps.
Something like that doesn't have to end the game.
Quote from: Chris24601 on June 21, 2021, 02:03:34 PM
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 21, 2021, 12:51:52 PM
Automatic TPKs are bad, but as far as a TPK happening because of one character's mistake... that sounds more like a decision.
For example, let's say the party is level 1 and sneaking past an owlbear. Fighting it means they're surely doomed or near doomed. One player gets the bright idea to throw a stone at the owlbear for laughs. The owlbear wakes up and kills all the party members in its fury.
Should the rest of the party have suffered from that player's decision?
My serious answer as a GM; the owlbear unleashes it's full fury during the first round on the offending idiot who threw the rock, even if it's wasting attacks on the corpse.
If the rest of the party takes that round to flee, they survive and the owlbear enjoys its meal. If they instead attack the owlbear then the dice fall where they may, but the other players at least got a choice in the outcome.
My basic principle is that PC death should not, generally, come down to a single point of failure over which a PC has no control (and unless the dice are loaded that includes any single dice roll). A player misses their perception check and is instantly crushed by a falling rock is certainly a realistic outcome, but it's not a particularly fun one generally.*
But if they also get some sort "Dodge" check to avoid the falling rock, you're now up to two points of failure. If there's a damage roll reflecting how the rock struck them (low damage they actually dodged after all but bruised or tore a muscle in the effort... medium damage a limb might be caught and crushed... etc.) you're now up to three points of failure.
Even better is if the PC has some sort of choice to make; the rock starts to fall and they can either dive for the closest point (low difficulty, maybe even automatic) and be separated from the party by the rock or they can dive the further distance back to the party (higher difficulty) but be with the party presuming they succeed. Now their death isn't random bad luck, it was the choice to go for the higher difficulty path that doomed them.
For a group TPK I'd really need it to involve failures from multiple group members (probably not all, but more than one) for failure to occur. Like put the TPK on the table for a rushed jump from a cold engine start. Now the navigator AND the engineer have to be cutting corners on the attempt and perhaps the captain as well for giving the order (and the navigator and engineer choosing to follow it). Multiple points of failure just really sells the idea that the TPK deserved to happen vs. being a random fluke.
* exception example; you're running a meat grinder dungeon with players rolling up new characters every few minutes and describing the cruel and unusual deaths of these characters they haven't even bothered to name is half the fun).
Yeah I said "TPK" but it's more like "one PC does something stupid that starts an encounter everyone tries to fight through and suffers for it." Maybe it's not even a TPK but 1-2 PCs die that wasn't even the instigator.
In fact, that's exactly what happened in that situation because it was from one of my games.
Really, I think putting this into the game in the first place is the problem. If astrogation is meant to be a non-trap or non-emergency option in the game world, it should not have a random chance of wiping the ship. Doing this means that you're forcing a PC to have this skill if you want to engage with the system.
If you want to be old-school, be old-school. Why not look at actual historic voyages, and make the check to successfuly make it through your hyperspace-du-jour a series of checks, requiring expertise from multiple non-exclusive skill sets, so that making it through the void is inherently something you need a crew (or party!) of skilled, highly-risk-tolerant experts for?
If you expect a game to include both social courtly ballroom drama, back-alley knife fights, and heavy-weapon battlefield combat, then you need to make sure that if you have the Diplomat, Shiv Artist, and Tank Jockey classes, that all of those classes can at least contribute in their non-specialist encounters, unless you want your players to be bored when they're not in the one type of situation their class is good at. And likewise, if you want to make astrogation a challenge which can wipe the party, then you should damn well include a good amount of mechanics to let all of your expected character types engage with it. Include steps like hull inspection and delicate micro-maneuvers in nullspace and the sheer grit to will yourself upright and conscious to make it to the emergency stop control when you hit a nerve-flaying warp storm, to turn what would have been a lost vessel into a badly off-course one (and one badly-fried PC who made the effort).
Quote from: HappyDaze on June 21, 2021, 12:54:27 PMDo you allow the rest of the party to benefit from one player's decision?
Well the issue with random chance death, is your payers benefiting from decisions is memorable. But benefitting/ suffering from mandetory random chance (the only way to bypass or reduce is to just not play the game), is dull.
I'm a gleefully murderous GM and I rarely have TPKs happen.
I'm cool with the idea that players make costly mistakes and the dice can be cruel, but on the flip side, players sometimes do dumb shit and the dice gods love them for it.
Traveller has misjumps. They're quite lethal. That's why salvage missions exist.
It's also why quick chargen exists.