Is this fair for the narrator to do?

In a segment of the game I am planning, I have outlined one of my players being captured by an unknown alien race and put through a series of tests to see what humans are capable of in endurance and fighting styles. One of the tests is combat in a Roman-style arena settling against a few opponents with swords or some other hand held item

What I have in mind is if my player fails in any of the combat attempts, he will lose an arm. My reason behind this is to start off early showing that in my games you can die or become injuried. Is this a fair thing to do? If so, wh do you think so. If not, why? Thanks.

Assuming that your player characters are Starfleet officers, and assuming that this is a real, permament injury and not something that the aliens make right at the end of the scenario...

You need to ask yourself what life holds for a one armed Starfleet officer.

I think it would be unlikely that one armed officers would continue to serve on starships. Depends on the era of the campaign and the officer's position to a certain extent.

Will he be invalided out of the service? Confined to desk duty? Both of efectively remove the character from the campaign - so you might as well kill him rather than chop off an arm.

Or will he be given a cybernetic arm by Starfleet? In which case watch out for the munchkinism which often seems to follow any such move.

But in general you can run whatever sort of campaign you like and letting your players know early on that it's going to be mean, is better than having them find out later after they've become attached to their characters.

If you're running in the TNG/DS9/VOY timeframe, a lost limb could be replaced with a biosynthetic replacement that doesn't grant any special traits, but operates more or less just as your real one did. Nog's leg in DS9's 7th season is a perfect advantage. A few weeks of physical therapy, and counseling to deal with the mental trauma, and you're right back at it.

Dude, bionic limbs.

Anyway, how do you think your players would respond to having one of their character's limbs hacked off?

Initially I would be more concerned about the imballance in the game of having one of your players off on a solo adventure, while they have to do what while it's happening? It works fine on TV because the camera follows who it needs to follow, but for a troupe style play, it will leave all the other players twiddling their thumbs! You may need to address this by capturing everyone, so at least they can take part! :D

Hmm, there are no firm rules for removal of body parts, in either Icon or Coda.. which system is it for (or another). In combat I am not a big fan of random bad roll combat. It, to me, doesn't seem fair, to kill someone on the basis of a single bad roll. Perhaps yoiu should take the PC down to a certain wound threshold, and the injury then requires a certain skill target roll for them to repair the wound.

One of my House rules is if someone goes into and beyond 'death' Doctors do have a chance to save them, as in modern medicine that's possible, but on a radom roll (because damage is in a random location) they lose a body part. Since my campaign is set post Voyager, it's not a huge problem, but what I do is: converting over the merit 'medical remedy' the PC buys off their 'flaw' of lost limb etc. So someone blinded has irreperable eye damage, but can get a set of cybernetic eyes. However they are a 'medical remedy' not a cure: As with Geordi, he often suffered headaches, and side effects because of the remedy, and he also had the neural interface used as an access point for several Romulan plots LOL. Any replacement part has flaws, because it is not the original. It may well replace, and enhance an ability, one bionic arm is not much use at ripping through doors, as you're as likelly to rip it out of it's socket! :D

Most Starfleet officers I think would cope quite well with a limb loss, it would hamper them, but most are screened psychologically, and they have good therapists in the fleet, so they should adjust - eventually! :D

I agree in some ways that PC's should learn they are not invulnerable, but usually wouldn't inflict that lesson UNLESS they brought it on themselves. If you're just inflicting it on someone they may find that unfair: People don't respond well to be set up to fail; why bother trying if nothing they do can change something, and their whole fate rests on an unlucky dice roll!

I think this has a great potential for turning out bad. I mean, the player will probably feel like he is being punished for no apparent reason, other than rolling bad, or rather not rolling good enough. How should anyone win a fight against a trained swordsman without a weapon? Since you intend to railroad your players into this situation, they might consider this unfair. After all, they didn't do anything to deserve this.
First maiming him and then giving him a completely funtional artificial limb could also be problematic. The message you wanted to send to your players was that they can die in your game if they aren't careful. Instead, they might learn that even severe and life-threatening injuries are easily healed.

Why don't you do what all Star Trek writers have done? Kill a redshirt. Of course, for this death to be meaningful to the players, there has to be a bond between the PCs and the doomed character. The character could be a friend of the PCs and he either volunteered for the mission, because he wanted to hang out with his buddies, or the PCs selected him to accompany them (for the same reason).

No, this is definitely not fair. If the character will, no matter his own doings, fail and loose an arm it is not fair. Players should have a fair chance to evade disaster by inteligent thinking and/ or by good rolls. If a character is predestined to fail, than it is not fair.
But one should also have the following in mind:

1. How will the player react? I for one would simply take another character, which is a personal thing, because loosing a limb just would not fit my expectations of a role in a Trek-surrounding.
However in a SW-campaign I had a character, who lost a leg in the first adventure of a campaign. Only through pressure of the rest of the group, I continued to play him and he came out to be one of the most favourite characters and most memorable ones, because his lost limb became centre of several episode.

2. Life isn't fair. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, you fail. However in that case I would think of episodes and ways of the character dealing with the injury. Don't just put it behind you, but work on it, use it for drama and tragedy, which will eventually give the character more depth. Don't do it to show you players that your campaigns can be dangerous, do it to tell a story. If the story is worth it the players will accept such a decision because it still is fun.


I like epic stories and heroism, combined with tragedy and drama. So when I plan an episode or a campaign, I usually have complicated obstacles ready for the characters and they are often dangerous and the players know it. But I also care for the characters of my players and therefore I have a rule of thumb. Unless the players decide to do something stupid, no one dies - and it works. They still are "frightened" and excited during my episodes, although knowing when they use their brains they won't loose their characters. In fact I think it is "because" they know this. When the players know that their work in a character won't be spoiled simply because of a mood of mine but only if they make a bad decision, like "Ok come one, nine Klingon warriors are no problem for me, an unarmed Ferengi scientist,...", they are actually investing time into their characters and therefore into the campaign, which makes fun for both sides of the narratorscreen.
Also if no matter how hard they think and independent of their skills they can still catastrophly fail they will stop thinking hard and in the end stop playing alltogether. I usually do not regard the skilroll too much, but more the idea behind a solution. If it is good thinking I usually let the character succeed if the odds are not insanely off the scale.

If you want to show the players that the campaign can get dangerous if they are not careful, then I go along with Ergi. Use the redshirt method. Worked for decades of ST TV series', so let it work for you. I made the experience that arbitrary decisions of narrators ruin a game very quickly. Depending on the kind of story even "by the rules" decisions will do so. And remember the goal is not to follow as many rules as possible, but to have fun. It is a game not the real world ;)

Unless you add in 'arm severing' rules or some sort of basic guideline the players can grasp, this is going to look like just narrator fiat, establishing nothing but a lingering sense of annoyance.

I think what you really need to deside is whether the player can deal with it. If you do this, I would suggest taking the player aside and ask him/her if they would not mind it (try not to give too much away about the adventure though).

Try the following: "Would you mind if your character lost a limb or body part for the story?"

Try it and see what the player says. Personnally, I would not mind (if it was me), but I'm not in your game, so....

Good luck with it though.

Losing a limb was an alternative I often thought about should the case happen of a player dying because of a bad die roll.
For instance, if a character happens to find himself on the wrong side of a disruptor set to kill, I would rather have the player lose a limb or something similar instead of dying. This would establish that bad things can happen and that the characters are not immortal, while not destroying the work the player put into his character (OTOH, if the player is ok with his character dying, then by all means let him go...).

But I wouldn't force this on a player, just to make clear from the start that the game is serious. Just warn your players, and then should the case occur you could use this to enforce the point.

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Originally Posted by Jerod

In a segment of the game I am planning, I have outlined one of my players being captured by an unknown alien race and put through a series of tests to see what humans are capable of in endurance and fighting styles. One of the tests is combat in a Roman-style arena settling against a few opponents with swords or some other hand held item

What I have in mind is if my player fails in any of the combat attempts, he will lose an arm. My reason behind this is to start off early showing that in my games you can die or become injuried. Is this a fair thing to do? If so, wh do you think so. If not, why? Thanks.

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You mentioned this a segment so I assume you have your players doing other things in a split game mastering session.

If this is a perm injury: Is this a good story vehicle? Or are you maiming to maim? Can the player handle having his character's arm chopped off?

My opinion wait for someone who deserves it in game, just setting off how blood thirsty and dark you are may not be the best idea unless this is what your group thrives on.

In a Star Wars game, I ended up giving all my players not characters nightmares when I ran a torture scene. Ahhh years of running WOD paid off. It was great vehicle, but other times I have done it I get a me'h.

If you are having doubts this may be a sign not a good idea. But my thoughts.

Personally, as a GM or Narrator, I don't like to railroad PCs to take a course of action that will inevitably leave them seriously disabled or somehow permanently disadvantaged unless the PCs make that choice themselves. I'm not afraid to have PCs killed, maimed or harmed if they themselves make dumb choices. But I at least I give them a choice or a fighting chance as it were.

It seems in your scenario, you've already decided the outcome. I wouldn't play it that way but would rather let the scenario itself decide the outcome. Perhaps the PC might actually survive all the alien trials completely intact. I would at least give the PC a reasonable chance of coming through this w/o being disabled.

I also agree that if you put a PC in such a no-win scenario, the player may think they are being punished for no reason or that you, the Narrator, have a personal grudge/vendetta against the player & are taking it out on the player's character.

Now if you want to do this as a holodeck simulation....

I say don't do this. Period.

If your game is dark, and bloody, state that clearly up front.

Running a scenario to "Prove it" is uneccessary. Run scenarios for the themes and plot, not to prove the combat system.

If you want to illustrate this, inside a scenario, as others have said... have the players grow to like an important NPC, like a security chief.

The ship meets an alien race, and they challenge "Who among your crew is the strongest?" The CO might step up, but the Sec Chief moves to stand in front of the captain, doing his job, bravely, defending the CO. The aliens say "Very Well, prepare."

The Chief gets "Selected" and abducted by an alien mechanoid/bug/slime/hulking brute/telepathic-kinetic menace at your option to fight in an arena, or some other concept like that. Narrate his fighting for a round or two, (since you have already worked out all of the die rolls and such in advance since this is the scenario, to speed play) then he gets his head lopped off or arm hacked off, blood spurting over the ground, turning the dust into red mud.

Then he dies. Then the enemies offer some kind of plot twist for the crew, such as "You Federation are weak specimens, and offer no sport to our warriors. Leave now, and we will waste no more time with you."

At that point, the Crew can play out the following themes:

How far do we take revenge?

What events make a war worth starting?

The needs of the one are greater than the needs of the many.

Etc etc.

Most crews will commence orbital bombardment in "Revenge", and be pissed off when you have the Admiral back at base call them wrong. Some series moderators with a military style trek will be all for this kind of thing, and the players will groove on it.

But lopping of a PC arm? Don't do it.

Now, having said that, if the CO or other crew beams down to the planet, wanting to fight the thing/bweast/whatever or head alien honcho hand to hand, KNOWING ALREADY the risks of arm loppage that the brave Sec Chief has shown, let the CO do it as long as he/she has a slim chance or some kind of edge where they can survive. If so, that's drama. If not, it's tragedy. Then let the dice or skills/attributes of the cast member be the deciding factor.

I wouldn't reccomend chopping off an arm just to show players that the game is more dangerous than other RPGs.

First off, there ar better ways to get your point across. In TOS, the writers would kill off a crewmenber (typically a security red shirt) in order to show the audience (and Kirk) that the stakes were high. Likewise, if you want to show the players just how nasty combat can be kill off an NPC. If you really want it drive the point home either kill off the NPC becuase of the player's action (like refusing to cooperate with the captors or attempting to escape), or kill off an NPC that you have fleshed out in the cmapign a bit.

Another idea, also used in TREK is to have the powerful anliens undo everything at the end of the story. This might work, IF the players realise that they aren't going to get raised from the dead after every adventure.

Secondly, arbitrality cutting on a character's limb will probably sent a ifferent message than the one you want. Whie it DOES show show that the characters can die or be injured in your game, it also shows HOW and WHY the characters can be killed or maimed. Losing a character to poor decision or bad luck is one thing-losing a character so that the GM can prove a point is another. Many players will feel that the GM is acting like Q.

My suggestion is to just warn the players that the game can be deadly, give them a chance to learn the system a bit (a mock firefight in the holodeck with phasers on disintergrate might do the trick), and then just run the game and let what happens, happen. If the group gets wasted early on, it should prove your point, and show that you are being fair.

Also, the idea comes that if you have them beam down, and someone loses an arm, they won't usually want to beam down, and thus will in future take the Offshore Naval Gunfire as a brutal, but arm-preserving tactical option in preference to something that might put the landing party / away team at risk.