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I think that is easily explained through multiple factors:
Usually a campaign heats up over time, becoming more dangerous. At least a good one should.
Some people play in a way that gets them killed more. This does not mean playing bad or doing suicidal stuff. If you are more active and do more things, you are far more likely to die. Or you just like to take a few more risks for greater gains, while the rest of the party is very comfortable hanging back and letting you take the risks, but appearing just in time to reap the rewards. This can be both a character trait and a player trait.
And maybe if you just got a new character, you are willing to take a few more risks, because you want that character to make a name for himself (and actually understand that character. If i play someone, they tend to take on a life of their own), and you are not that attached to him yet either.
Btw, don't take this as me judging. Dying is very often not a symptom of bad play, but of pushing the game forward. If everyone just plays it save all the time, you got a group of guys that never risk anything, and thus never do anything interesting. And if everyone always just charges forward into everything, then you don't have a lot of depth either, because you are no longer making decisions, you are just rolling results.
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Also I was in the shower thinking about open rolls and hidden rolls. You've been doing open rolls for the CoC campaign, yet I think the weakness of it was shown when we fought the deep ones, specifically when trident guy rolled a 38 and missed. At that point we knew that he had probably a skill of 35 or 30, which either way is a 65-70% chance of him missing an attack, so suddenly the fact that there were 5 of them was significantly less scary because we know that we have much better skills than they do.
However with hidden rolls you don't know their skill and damage, and at that point it is up to the GM to give the impression of someone who would fudge rolls or not (take neal from rollplay for example, I'm not even sure if he does fudge rolls, as he doesn't really give off an aura of mercy and 2nd chances), and that way the fear is maintained because we can't directly observe the mechanics in action, and that leaves a lot to the unknown. As H.P. Lovecraft said: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”.
So I would think that hidden rolls make more sense in a CoC campaign, yet you choose to have open rolls; why?
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Because this way i can kill you more easily. Open rolls make it absolutely clear to you that there is no layer of protection that could possibly save you. You absolutely know that when the dice fall, there is nothing that can save you. There is no room for faith If you die, you die. Does the fact that there is a 60% chance that a specific hit will NOT kill you really make that attack less scary? (Also, just because one guy is bad at stabbing doesn't mean all of them are) There is no doubt, no need for faith. Just the uncaring universe deciding your fate while you can only watch.
But i agree, there should probably have been more than those 5 deep ones. Or i should have found a better way to make the fact that you are fighting in their territory problematic for you. Mali for the small, rocking boat. Deep ones below the surface trying to sink you, instead of attacking you in a way that allows you to shoot them. Dex rolls for staying inside the boat while the deep ones below try to sink it. Screaming Firm Action guys getting pulled under, and never being seen again. I pretty much improvised that whole scene without a lot of preperation or time to think about it, and i agree that i could have done a lot better there. And yes, especially not putting the number of deep ones in a situation where you clearly wouldn't know it up in a way for you to see would have been a good idea. I should go back to my lazy ways of not having individual stats for each guy out of a group.
But now that you know all of the dangers of Grey Dragon Island (which i should probably have told you is how that place is called on your map), there is absolutely no danger in assembling a strike force and going back there. No danger at all. Nothing could go wrong, since you now know what is going on.
I choose hidden rolls whenever the fact that i roll something is something you shouldn't know, or the result of the roll is something that I need to know immediately, but you should really not. One other problem i have is that it is impossible for me to roll in a way that makes you know i roll, but not see the result.
But the main reason is that it simply feels wrong if i constantly roll everything hidden, and i think the game is just more fun if everyone sees the die falling.
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To be fair, it's kind of scummy to do what we did and say "fuck that weak ass trident guy" and shoot at the other dudes too. Then again, having all of us stay in a working boat was my biggest worry. I was pretty sure the dex rolls were coming sooner or later, when they were rocking it. I think it was pretty scary too, so for that purpose I think there were enough of them. 
Edit: or I guess it isn't meta-gaming if we imagine us seeing him swing wildly and with no real proficiency. Hm.
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Some people play in a way that gets them killed more. This does not mean playing bad or doing suicidal stuff. If you are more active and do more things, you are far more likely to die. Or you just like to take a few more risks for greater gains, while the rest of the party is very comfortable hanging back and letting you take the risks, but appearing just in time to reap the rewards. This can be both a character trait and a player trait.
This was how I would have responded to Jack's post about the same people dying more often, had Sven not beaten me to it. I've died the most I think not because I'm an idiot (maybe I am), but because I don't shut the fuck up and let someone else do the dumb shit I always do. And when I say dumb I don't mean reckless, I mean the actions that I, Andrew, as a player, know will get me killed, but feel are realistic for my character. Yaleesha for example, was very brave and determined, and she died for it. Li Zhang got pretty fucking unlucky, but honestly in this session we were lucky that only one PC died, and Mr. Li had pretty remarkable rolls that saved certain members of the party from certain death (you're welcome Murgel).
CoC is a system where failing a roll will get you killed, and as Sven says above, I am a very active player who tries to get involved as much as possible, and the more involved you are, the higher chance to get killed. But I'm happy with my role within the group, which is pushing us all towards more discovery and adventures, even at the cost of my characters .
/endinspiriationalspeech
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You keep telling yourself that, feeder. ;D
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I somehow knew you would be the first to reply.
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Hey, we people with more deaths than the rest combined need to stick together, don't we?
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I do wonder how much time Ivan has left in him, he has like 26 sanity left, and no left arm.
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Haha totally. No one else understands our loss.
Edit: Ivan might not last too long. 26 sanity is pretty low, I expect he will already be acting very paranoid and further losses of sanity may prove deadly.
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By the way, I forgot to ask, but what exactly had happened to Yaleesha, was it really some zombie magics?
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But what does this have to do with explosives?
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If you can find a B&W picture of a guy with a ginormous Mustache doing it, it is probably something you can do in CoC.
On February 12 2014 01:32 dismiss wrote:
By the way, I forgot to ask, but what exactly had happened to Yaleesha, was it really some zombie magics?
Guess you shouldn't have killed her then^^ Now you will never know! And it isn't what i think you think it is.
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Oh wow I just realised we play on my birthday in two weeks :D. Monday Feb 24th (Sunday 23rd for you guys).
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Let's see if you can avoid dying that day. :D
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Yeah well if this is our last week in China then next week will be us getting settled in Australia/Kenya so I shouldn't die. But if next week is our last in China then I'm fucked :D.
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Just in case, my PM gets lost in the depths of the internet: I have to cancel tomorrow for personal reasons, gl and try to do´nt get us killed by green smoke.
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 Bummer
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ATTENTION CITIZEN!
You have been chosen to assist your friend The Computer in cleansing Alpha Complex of Commies, Mutants and other Traitors as a troubleshooter. Your clearance level has been raised to RED clearance due to your recent actions. Report to the mission briefing complex at [Information restricted to clearance level YELLOW or higher] for mission briefing immediately. On your way there, carefully read the following Mandatory Troubleshooter Guidelines. Failure to do so is treason. ATTENTION! Reading in traffic is a public safety hazard and thus treasonous.
Don't worry, it will be fun. Fun is mandatory. Not having fun is treason.
ATTENTION CITIZEN! Ignore the CREATING A TROUBLESHOOTER section in the Mandatory Troubleshooter Guidelines. Your personal files will be provided by your friend The Computer. It will be fun!
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EPT
