Death

[Dunlaing]

Death is possible by the mechanics, just not something that is going to happen on a typically bad roll.

Using the Clor vs. Goliath thing, taking it from a mechanics POV, the Watcher likely has a decent Doom Pool, possibly adds a die or two to beef the attack pool even higher, rolls well, spends some more doom to make sure the total is crazy high and sits on a base d12 stress.

With the ball in his court now, Goliath rolls and, as indicated by the panel in the comic, his defense was, essentially, nonexistent, so it's a bad roll. Every 5 points in the attacker's favor here adds ever increasing stacks of Extraordinary Success. Each one of these steps up the effect die. Yes, we'd need 6 Extraordinary Successes, so we'd have to beat the reaction by 30 or more, but it is possible. Made even more possible if both Watcher and player are in agreement narratively (thus the player avoids boosting their roll via PP, etc.)

Are you assuming that the step ups increase the trauma? Because I don't think that's the case. In your example, Goliath is not stressed out when he's attacked by Ragnarok. At that point, it doesn't matter how much your die gets stepped up, all it's going to do is stress Goliath out. It's only after he's been stressed out that we apply a d6 trauma to him. The fact that it was a d1000 that stressed him out is irrelevant.

[Gingerkid88]

wait? if Goliath was at d12 stress (which considering the heroes present during that fight its not really a stretch) and Ragnarok is getting his d12 stress, unleashes on him and wins the roll by 15... isnt Goliath at like d18ish truama and therefore dead? am i missing something?

[Gingerkid88]

and besides that, Villains are usually too busy trying to get away with what they are doing to just kill a hero, usually if he doesnt get up after a good hit, grab the loot and get out! but the mechanics for Kitty Pryde phasing someone's heart out or the sentry throwing someone into the sun are pretty much this "can they stop it from happening? if so roll. if no... sucks to be them...."

[clackey]

wait? if Goliath was at d12 stress (which considering the heroes present during that fight its not really a stretch) and Ragnarok is getting his d12 stress, unleashes on him and wins the roll by 15... isnt Goliath at like d18ish truama and therefore dead? am i missing something?

The rules don't say anything about stepping up trauma. No matter how much you go over D12, you are taken out and get D6 trauma.

From OM23...

"Once any type of stress exceeds d12, your hero is stressed out and can’t take any actions or do anything until he recovers with another hero’s aid or in a Transition Scene. He also picks up a d6 of trauma—emotional, mental, or physical, depending on the stress that caused it—that takes longer to recover
from."

So to die, in the rules, you would have to be stressed out 5 times. And all the while, your hero would be getting more battered and hurt. The way the rules stand now, you can't die from just one shot. And neither can a villain. You can beat someone while they're down, causing more trauma, but that's not very heroic and that really doesn't happen in comics that often.

I know Cam said, you can choose to have a character die if you get stressed out, but that feels like a bit of a cop out. We buy these games for rules systems. We want that shared structure in our games, so that everyone is on the same page. And as narrative as this game is, there is a ton of crunch. And it feels like a bit of a let down to have the crunch disappear on something as big as death in the game. Now I could see the argument that that is exactly the place you need the flexibility, but I would like a rule there that at least I can ignore when I don't like how it works.

Would I kill a PC in my game if the player didn't want it to happen? No. But there is a difference on letting your character dying and causing them to die. And I miss the option of the former. That's all.

[Doc_Nova]

No, you're right. The rules don't explicitly state that trauma steps up with extraordinary success. It also does not specifically state that is does not. In fact, it states that you step up your effect die. I was extrapolating that trauma, like stress, is an effect that would easily enable what you are looking for. If that doesn't work for you and your game, I get that, but it was an attempted solution for your querry.

[Dunlaing]

It's not that your effect die isn't stepping up. It's that your effect die isn't causing trauma, it's causing stress. And no matter how much stress you do, the maximum effect you get from stress is Stressed Out. Once someone is Stressed Out, they also get d6 trauma, but there's no reason that would get stepped up, as it's not from your effect die, it's just what happens whenever someone gets Stressed Out.

Once you are already Stressed Out, additional attacks can do trauma with their effect die (if it's the same type), but that's only after you're already Stressed Out.

[Doc_Nova]

It's not that your effect die isn't stepping up. It's that your effect die isn't causing trauma, it's causing stress. And no matter how much stress you do, the maximum effect you get from stress is Stressed Out. Once someone is Stressed Out, they also get d6 trauma, but there's no reason that would get stepped up, as it's not from your effect die, it's just what happens whenever someone gets Stressed Out.

Once you are already Stressed Out, additional attacks can do trauma with their effect die (if it's the same type), but that's only after you're already Stressed Out.

See, I would debate that the D6 trauma is a result of the effect die, as the effect die is the source of being stressed out, and that the two are intertwined. The result enables extreme case attacks to carry the threat of lethality, all within the parameters of the rules. Nowhere in the spirit of the rules, as I can locate or discern, does it declare that anything beyond D12+ is simply lost. Those extraordinary successes generated on a ridiculously high result with minimal (intentional or not) reaction should account for something. The most immediately logical application would be the resulting trauma, since trauma is merely a mechanical evolution of stress. This supports the notion that an accurate headshot with a high-powered weapon against an unaware target (that would be one possible narrative for a massive attack result against a low reaction) should do more than stop at D6 trauma.

In fact, according to the rules, once you are stressed out, trauma steps up just like stress (resulting stress inflicts equal or smaller die, step trauma up by +1, resulting stress inflicts higher die, replace trauma with said die). So the point of contention might more accurately be the point of being stressed out. Are you stressed out when you hit D12+, but the attack inflicted D12+++ (the extra plusses stemming from multiple counts of Extraordinary Success), in which case are the extra plusses lost and the attack translates into Stress D12, Trauma D6, or do the extra plusses carry over from the moment of being stressed out, in which case you are Stress D12, Trauma D10?

Ultimately, however, I go back to the comment about what works for different games. I, for one, had always planned on running such results this way...it allows for the super rare, but still possible "one-shot kill" type of result. It also allows for a chance and threat of consequence death and not just narrative death.

[jaif]

Page 24 - once you are stressed out, further stress goes to trauma. There's a paragraph on this.

I like the rules the way they are. I do believe death by die roll should be a possibility in any RPG, but in a comic RPG i'm quite happy to make it virtually impossible in one shot. I'm going off my memory, but I believe Goliath was involved in a rather large fight at the time he was killed, so it's entirely conceivable he had a large amount of stress already.

-Jeff

[Cam]

An easy fix of this is to allow players to declare they are "going lethal" (or for the Watcher to declare this during the battle). If you inflict more than d12 stress, all additional stress turns into trauma. You could even tie this into a doom pool spend. Say, the Watcher spends d10 out of the doom pool and now all stress of one type rolls over into trauma. Spend 3d10 out of doom and this applies to all stress types. Players could do the same by spending a PP to declare lethal stress, also.

But, in case you're wondering, the reason this is so hard to do is because death is a story point in the Marvel Universe, not something that just happens as a result of dice rolls. It is significant, and as such, takes either significant effort or the writer (player) has to want it to happen.

Cheers,
Cam

[Venshad]

Could we just consider that the difference between Stress and Trauma is how seriously injured is the character?

I mean, mechanicaly we could *ignore* the rule that states that all damage that exceeds D12+ is lost, and keep aplying damage as trauma, IF we are going for lethal.

For example, if I am at D10 Physical Stress and receive a D12 physical effect, aggravated by three extraordinary successes, I'd be at D8 physical trauma.

Another *rule* should be If I want to keep rolling, I must spend a PP to avoid being knocked out, thus keeping active.