More Motivational Posters
Jul. 13th, 2006 10:05 pmI've never played in this system. The Rolemaster RPG is notorious among gamers for its "critical failure" rules. Rolling badly in combat can have brutal results. Losing a limb (or even your head) isn't uncommon....
Traveller (no sic--that's how the game is spelled) is notorious as the only game (that I know of) in which it is possible to lose a character before you ever start playing. Character creation in this system involves rolling dice at the end of every 4-year term of military service (all your characters are veterans) to determine whether he survived. So you have to balance additional skills, higher rank, more money when you muster out, etc. versus the risk of the character dying. Most people that I know very quickly changed the rules in their Traveller campaigns; my own gaming group decided that failing your "survival" roll simply meant a mandatory exit from the service; if you rolled snake eyes, it was a dishonorable discharge, and we started competing for the most amusing tale of how we'd managed to get thrown out of the service.)