A Badass Too Far

[the_gneech]

Alas, had the first PC death in one of my games we've had in quite a while tonight. jamesbarrett's two-gun action kid in Coventry, while everybody else had already pretty much fled, provoked the shotgun-toting hovercraft-flying boss and her helicopter-with-Vulcan-equivalent-machine-gun escort into going after him with everything they had. And while I didn't want to do it, I couldn't think of any good reason for them to not just blow him away. He did manage to get some licks in, not to mention getting them to blow the boss's own house to bits w/ the machine gun. So it was certainly memorable! But kind of a downer ending to the evening, in any case.

Coventry has the concept of the GOJFree ("Get Out of Jail Free") Unit, basically a "save a backup copy of you just before you die" device that allows you to be restored, much like a video game respawn. Unfortunately, this was the second session of the game, and the characters haven't found any of those yet!

Still, he had an out-- they had reached a pivotal decision point in the game where the boss was pondering whether to continue fighting or to simply cut and run. If the PC had taken non-hostile actions (like, leaving), he would have almost certainly got away. Instead he attacked a force that clearly outgunned him head-on. Gung-ho the game may be, but even with that I have to play the baddies according to their abilities, or there's no point in using the framework of the game at all.

So... sorry about that, Slick "Deadeye" Hooligan! Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.

-The Gneech

Comments

[harper-knight.livejournal.com]

To be fair, sometimes the character gets in your head and you just gotta do what you gotta do.. I've gotten a couple characters killed knowing perfectly well that there was no way they could survive the actions they were taking, but also knowing that there was *no way* that character would do anything else.

[jamesbarrett.livejournal.com]

Everyone should have known that, if Slick were to ever die, he would go out exactly like that. All the way up to the moment that he kicked the bucket, it was The Most Awesome Scene Evar! I am not disappointed that he died. What has me down is thinking of some other character as cool and perfectly appropriate as he was without it feeling like a pale imitation of my best character ever. And, if he had actually made it out of there, he was so gonna call the rest of the gang cowards for running for their lives when the fight was barely over. :D He did miscalculate by overlooking the potential firepower of the Buzzard, but if Granny hadn't exploded her dice with her shields, I still think he could have taken her. That and getting a 2 when all the rest of the bad guys got an 8 or up for initiative It was that "you go last this round" that really did him in. I won't even mention that all his allies ran away. Oops, mentioned it.

On the plus side, you said you wanted over the top badassery and you can't say I didn't give it to you. :) I guess my next character will need to be more of a coward, to match the personalities of the group more. Or at least less bad ass. Though it's gonna be so hard to match Slick without finding myself carbon copying him in some silly reincarnated form or another.