A few hours ago I finished the most recent session of my Force and Destiny game. The session ended with all 5 PCs unconscious, having just lost a fight against 8 Jedi Training droids armed with training sabers. The fight was rough to say the least. Not just from a numbers perspective, but also the skill of the droids.
Now, this was done on purpose. My original intention when I set the PCs into the base was that they would gain access to more and more of the base, slowly unraveling its secrets and story, as the game progressed. However, I made a mistake. I didn't account for the creative thinking my players have, nor the full scope of some of their abilities. The obstacles I placed towards getting to the later parts of the base were as big as I had hoped, and so the PCs did what you would reasonably expect anyone to do. They explored the base.
This resulted with the two PCs finding two rooms stuffed full of activated and angry droids. One room had 12, the other had 8. My hope was that the numbers would be a detriment, but they tried anyhow. The fight was going well until the "stun" effect of the training sabers came into effect. The PCs only have so much strain, and a lot more things can impact strain than you'd expect at first. One PC went down and the fight went from 7 on 5 to 7 on 4. Another PC dropped soon after and it was 7 on 3. Then 7 on 2. The last two PCs blew the last of their strain getting their three unconscious friends out and locking the door.
Surprisingly I'm not upset about this. I know I made some errors, but my PCs also knew the deal before they went in, made that choice anyhow, and the dice didn't come up with the results they needed. For me, I need to take the lesson about making obstacles more obvious and blatant in a way. There's no reason why I couldn't have gone with the more robust "this door requires X part in order to be repaired and unlocked. You don't have X part." then, later on, give that part (or let a PC work towards making/fabricating it) and going from there.
It is something that, should I do another thing like this in the future, that I should take to heart.
For now though, my players - all mature players so no hard feelings here to the best of my knowledge - have just lost their first major fight where they went all out. They lost to a bunch of droids outfitted with training sabers. They know they are in an old jedi base. The question is, what do they do from here? (I believe the vote is "find concussion grenades, roll them in, check the scrap.")
All I can do is learn and move forward. Hopefully the PCs do the same. It should be fun.
What I'd like to say about this encounter is that I felt it wasn't too much at all. I actually felt like it was the statement that you won't aim to kill us, but that you won't hesitate to "pull the trigger" if we are stupid and over extend. This isn't a game of immortal, consequence-less PC madness. I liked it.
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