Hi Greg Berry,

I agree that the GM/Referee has the right to fairly kill characters off during a game and that under certain conditions can manipulate results a bit or a lot to keep to going. In my case I kill off my own characters with unbelievably lousy die rolls that have left more than on Referee amazed. Somebody has to be one of Star Trek's red shirted landing party.;-)

Part of the reason I stopped playing D&D was because of "aggressively stupid behavior by a character."

Thank you for your reply.

Tom R

From: "Craig Berry" <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2016 4:28:05 PM
Subject: Re: GM discretion; wasRe: [TML]Tracking spaceships inJump TU, was: Instantcity

Sure. And a GM is well within his "rights" to kill characters through the risks inherent in almost all activities. People get killed just crossing the street every day, after all.

That being said, the players and the GM are trying together to create an entertaining and involving narrative. A story in which our hero discovers a secret conspiracy, takes risks to learn more, manages to sneak into the secret base, and then dies due to tripping and falling down a set of stairs would be supremely unsatisfying as narrative, even if it's the sort of thing that really can happen. A capable GM will bend outcomes a little bit (or rarely and judiciously, quite a lot) so that even if the hero(s) die, they die in some interesting, meaningful, satisfying way.

Of course, aggressively stupid behavior by a character is a different matter, and the GM is under no obligation to prevent an in-game Darwin Award from being earned. :)

On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 4:19 PM, <tmr0195@comcast.net> wrote:

Hello Phil Pugliese,

The tender that was my last at sea duty station did a refueling evolution and a resupply. The refueling evolution required both ships to steam relatively close to each other maintaining speed, course, and separation while taking on the fuel. The resupply consisted of having the Navy's version of the Chinook helicopter fly between the supply ship and tender. In both cases they are routine evolutions, however they are still hazardous considering that the lines used to pass the fuel hoses could break and the released tension sending the ends flying.

Tying up and pulling away for a pier is routine again because the lines could fail is hazardous.

In-flight refueling is routine to many military pilots but again is also hazardous when things go wrong.

My guess is the Referee judged skimming to be similar to in-flight refueling and applied the appropriate numbers. I was trying and apparently did not succeed in doing was to show that any game action, including a miss-jump, can end a game.

Thank you for the reply.

Tom R

From: "Phil Pugliese (via tml list)" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2016 3:33:46 PM
Subject: GM discretion; wasRe: [TML]Tracking spaceships inJump TU, was: Instantcity

This email was sent from yahoo.com which does not allow forwarding of emails via email lists. Therefore the sender's email address (xxxxxx@yahoo.com) has been replaced with a dummy one. The original message follows:

" In one Traveller session I in and have notes for the
ship was skimming for fuel which is an undertaking of a
hazardous nature in my opinion. The notes have the failure
criteria as 7+ without any modifiers we rolled an 8 adding
and subtracting modifiers put the final total a 10. The ship
was lost with all hands."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Considering how often the IN performs fuel skimming (just look at how many IN ships are equipped for it)
I, as GM, have considered it as a base 'routine' operation subject, of course, to modifiers.

However, I wasn't at your session so I'm not privy to what may have influenced the decision to classify that skimming op as 'hazardous'

In any case, this illustrates how much a GM's discretionary powers can influence the course of events.

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Craig Berry (http://google.com/+CraigBerry)
"Eternity is in love with the productions of time." - William Blake

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