Re: [DL] keeping players alive

[Reemull <reemull@yahoo.co.uk>]

 > New to the list, new to the game, but I love the whole idea 
> of it and have really enjoyed the sourcebooks immensely.
> 
> However, what the books do not address and I havent seen on 
> any Deadlands
> websites is suggestions on how a Marshal can keep his or her 
> players alive!
>  I'm not a killer GM, nor do I coddle my players, but I 
> forsee problems
> with practically no armor in the game and a lot of flying lead.  I
had
> similar problems running Cyberpunk, and that game even had armor.

Hi and welcome to the list.

I've got more of a probem keeping them dead!  (4 out of 5 are now
harrowed)

To be honest I've not had too many deaths in my posse as I try to
balance investigation with combat.  However times in which we've had PC
deaths - it has either been through PC stupidity, or when there is an
exceptionally long period of combat (either many fights one after
another or one long fight). 

I did have a death in our second session of playing Deadlands ever. 
The PC got shot in the guts for 4 wounds in the first session (charged
down a man with a shotgun) and then got hit in the chest by a tomahawk
in the second session (he decided to jump two indians on his own with
his knife, with 4 guts wounds)!

Funnily enough that characters dog still appears in our game from time
to time.

I would also say that I'm reasonably stingy with fate chips, so
liberally rewarding fate chips for good roleplaying etc should help PC
survivability greatly.

I've also found that the PC character will be pretty focused towards
what they do.  In general the people they come up against are not so
focused so you can expect the Quickness and Shootin aptitude of the PC
gunslinger to outclass that of the ordinary gunslinger on the street
(say something like 4D10 in comparison to 3D6) - so things are
generally stacked in favour of the PC not only shooting first but
hitting as well.  Of course if they are getting off too easily you can
up the numbers of baddies or increase the skill or supernatural content
of what they come up against.

Generally I found it good to start off with a mostly western theme and
then work in the supernatural bit as the PC's understand the world and
it's dangers more.  

A PC with a semi-decent Quickness stat, along with a shootin or Fightin
skill, plus dodge should be ok to run for a while unless the dice
really go against him.

Hope this helps 


Roy
 

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