>I agree to a point. Even so, a player with quite phenomenally bad dice luck
>ends up with a
>character who is just plain not as good as those around him.
Depends on your POV. That is, the rolls don't make his ability levels go down, they just make the character fail. So, don't make the character look bad because the player rolled poorly. Think of the roll as luck, and narrate circumstances causing the failure. Make the character unlucky.
Don't do:
"Ragnar swings his sword to defend himself in an amaturish fashion, and ends
up clumsily impaling himself on his opponent's sword."
Do:
"Ragnar swings his sword with great finesse and skill terrifying his
opponent. But the gods are against him - the wind blows sand in his face,
and he's blinded long enough for his dastardly opponent to manage to slip
his blade between Ragnar's ribs."
>Combine that with the
>player's apparent inability to focus on the idea of finding applicable
>augments and the
>determination to do something even in the face of great odds and you end up
>with what
>happened to his character: natural fumble on a big bid versus an opponent
>who still had
>bumps left over, so spending a point helped not a bit.
You're saying that the character got a "Complete Failure"? And you applied a "Dying" result to him?
I know, I know, "but the opponent was trying to kill him!" Right? Then,
B) Dying doesn't mean dead. The opponent leaves the PC to die in a pool of his own blood, and a local spirit heals him back up to incapacitated. When the PC wakes up, the spirit will insist on a quest in return for the favor. This all assuming that another PC wasn't there, or couldn't have wandered by and done the healing himself, or taken the character to where they could get healing, etc, etc.
I know, I know, "but it was a dramatic place for him to die!" Well then,
C) Then what are you complaining about! The system worked just fine.
Basically, there's never a time when the PC has to die mechanically. It requires that the GM declares that the PC is dying, and that there's nobody to save him. So, if you don't want the PC to die...then don't have him.
> > Roll the dice in the open, maybe for the first time in your gaming
>career.
> > You'll love it.
>
>I most always have. The only time I don't do this is when the characters
>are engaged in a
>contest and don't know about it.
I was pretty sure that you did. My statement above was just some playstyle propaganda. :-)
Mike
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