Re: Re: Tricky situations List - damage to followers

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 15:04:00 -0700

> And that still doesn't cover the case when the player
> would prefer that it is one of the followers who gets
> away lightly, not the leader. The suggestion that
> followers may take a different type of damage is a
> good one, and can get itself added to the "narrator
> notes" section, but I can think of plenty of
> circumstances where the leader will be trying to
> protect the weaker followers, not use them as ablative
> armour. Every now and then, the word "hero" might be
> appropriate in the normal English meaning as well as
> being used as a substitute for "PC".

Sure, but's still a narrator note rather than a Rule, per se. "I want to make sure Sally doesn't get hurt" is part of a combat declaration - the Narrator should then take that into account when the time comes to hand out those Hurts and Wounds. Maybe the player will trade two levels worse on this follower (the big bruising bodyguard, say) to keep that follower (the frail librariian with all the mystical knowledge) safe. It's all variations on a theme. Doesn't need a *rule*, just an explanation.

To tell the truth, followers in contests *was* written basically as ablative armor, and the survival of the PC-Hero was considered to be the priimary concern of the player. But it's also a trope of most heroeic stories that the followers are there to 'take a bullet" for the heroes, if they are mentioned at all. - look at the Song of Roland, the Illiad, etc - the heroes do all these great things, and die only after most of their followers have been downed. (You've usually got to leave one follower to take the story back to the king, though, or a bunch to bring the body back).

RR
He was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad R. Sabatini, Scaramouche