But he was crippled - forced to take an extreme consequence involving his hand and a fear of fire magic.
And if you replace "PC" with "Reoccurring Character" then there have been deaths and cripplings. Murphy's partner - I thought he'd be wisecracking to the end of the series, but he went down in book two. Knights of the Cross have constantly put themselves in the line of fire and (as of Small Favors) two of the swords lack welders. Susan - who would have thought that the girlfriend who pushed her luck time after time would ever run out of luck and become RCI? Or Thomas, who's "All right, I'm captured" concession led to torture?
Think of those reoccurring characters as PCs and you'll see where the drama comes from.
Richard
Think of those reoccuring characters as PCs, and it's dramatic, yes. I agree that risk of character death is a method you can use to create drama; I don't think anyone'd argue that it doesn't work. What I'm saying is that there are
alternatives. If you instead imagine that Harry and Murph are the PCs and everyone else is an NPC, you can see the sort of thing I mean
(until the end of Changes, of course)
; they don't die. Harry loses a hand, and that's a
seriously dramatic occurence- but he goes on to be successful in his goals for that scene, as the Black Court gets kicked out of their hideout. Most of the drama is coming from the risk of failingtheir allies or the people around them, and this happens several times, as people've mentioned.
Hell, being captured looks to me like a perfectly reasonable Taken Out result for Thomas in that scene; being left completely at the opponent's mercy is a little further than I'd usually be willing to go on a Concession...
Essentially, what I'm trying to say here is that there are different ways of looking at this, and the risk of PC death isn't
necessary. If it works for you, great! Have fun with your game! But that doesn't mean it's going to work for everyone.
