Sabredog's story is interesting because it's a classic no-win situation. However, I don't see why the player's are necessarily at fault for attempting a rescue. Sure, their reasoning process was flawed, but it can be justified from an in-game point of view and had I been there I probably would have tried to make a rescue attempt as well.
They went up against a up-gunned and armoured 300dton raider, but they were flying escort for another freighter. So their ship should have been able to stand against a raider vessel, otherwise what business were they having in escorting a freighter in the first place?
Maybe it's because I tend to play heroic type characters.
To expand on what Blue Ghost said:
I was describing a definite shift in attitude away from real role-playing to more of a videogaming attitude where the players seem to be getting away from thinking for themselves, reasoning out the whys and wherefores, or making (sometimes hard) moral choices over instead treating the game like a rail-shooter where they can do anything they want and will succeed just because the game is about them.
I
want and expect the players to act heroic if the situation is fitting, but I also want the game to be more than just some Star Trek episode, too. I want it to have layers, plots, wheels within wheels...and the players are part of all of that, too. The choices they make will have a greater ripple effect through the campaign than those made by the average Joe Spacer because to a degree the game
is about them, but there are also NPC's whom the game is also about and who make just as big a ripple when they act as the players do. And sometimes the other guy might have a bigger gun than you do because he can afford it...or because he took it off someone bigger than he was once in the past.
In the described situation it wasn't the fact that they tried to help the merchant, that's fine as part of the moral choices I present sometimes, and the heavier raider was part of the variables involved.... and because the raider captain wasn't just some 2-dimensional redshirt NPC he gave the players a break - which was me "in-character" hinting that maybe this time is it un-winnable and nice try, but remember this guy and later victory will be sweeter because of this encounter. They pressed the attack, well, ok I beat on them a bit and sent them on their way with something to think about: that being that they don't always have the bigger blaster (or testicles or analog of such depending on species) just because they are the player characters - where'd the fun be in that?
What I didn't expect and want to hear was "Oh we'll win this because it's early in the game and Scott won't kill us off this soon." Oh really? Gee, it's only a game and it takes like what, 30 minutes to roll up another batch of characters. What, are we all 12 years old and playing D&D and so attached to our elves that we pout in the other room when the red dragon our 3rd level elf bard/ranger/monk tried to sneak attack and failed said dragon is now picking its teeth with his femur?
Yeah, be a hero, but don't expect to be Superman, and don't expect the other guy won't sometimes be just as good or better than you sometimes - it's what makes the game challenging instead of some Monty Haul dungeon. A challenging game is a fun one, if there weren't challenges there'd be no need for heroes..and if the hero can't die then he isn't being a hero - he's just an action figure.
As it is the enemy NPC they encountered later turned up again having broken into their ship while it was in port and they were away. When they returned he had drop on them and presented them with a chance to repay him for the turret they cost him. They had to hijack a cargo he knew about before a rival gang got it first (although he didn't tell the player about the rival gang thing) and in exchange all would be square and he'd even throw in the location of a friendly NPC who's ship this guy had sent crash-landing on a small empty world so they could go rescue him, too.
The players unfortunately botched the timetable for the cargo delivery, and now being farther in the game and wiser, they decided to try to cut a deal with the rival gang leader - who turned out to be the privateer raider's boss. The raider owed this boss a lot in gambling debt and he has decided to steal this cargo and sell it to pay the debt and be clever about it by using some stooges. The players rolled with the situation and offered to help the boss sometime in the future. They sang like canaries and the raider captain was brought in and the boss thought it would be amusing to "give" him to the players for a while to work off his debt rather than just kill him (or them all).
So the players gained an ally, of sorts, and they actually get along well with the guy even if he is a sneaking backstabber of sorts, and has proven handy in trying to end this trade war with some of the connections he has. They dare not turn their back on him, but that has added some interesting dramatic tension. Once his debt is paid and his boss recalls him things might get really interesting and everyone involved knows it, but that's the sort of thing that makes for a good RPG game.
Since then a couple of the player's characters have been killed (and guess what? it actually added to the game since they went out in both situations not expecting to live but knowing they would give their buddies a chance by holding the fort while the others got away - and one died holding off an attack on the drive room by enemy boarders who would've blown the drive - took out 4 of them before he went down when the other PC's arrived) and now the players talk about how epic those incidents were instead of getting mad because "I wouldn't let them win". Their victories have been sweeter for it.
)
