Ideas for running a campaign without reducing lethality?
Hi all, I'm an aspiring Warden and long-time GM/DM of my playgroup (one of a couple, we alternate), and I have set my sights on running Mothership for my group next.
My biggest issue at the moment is that while I love the lethality of the game, and how MOSH handles character death, I am afraid that if my players are constantly rolling up new characters they may not feel as invested in a larger narrative like a campaign, or will otherwise feel like they're breaking immersion as they suspend disbelief on why their crew is suddenly adding a new fourth member *AGAIN*.
My first idea for addressing this was to take a page from DCCs playbook, and have every player roll up a handful of PCs as their own plucky little mercenary/delivery/red-shirts-for-hire crew, maybe run an intro adventure with the whole crew at once in the beginning to thin out the herd a little and give them that good old-fashioned trauma bond, and then as they go hopping from adventure to adventure force them to pick one maybe two characters each for the next mission on the roster (the company is only willing to pay for transport for X number of people, the client doesn't want to send too large of a group in because it'll spook the researchers, etc.)
I like this idea, because then the campaign becomes less focused on progression for any of their individual characters, but rather for their company, their ship, their homebase, what have you. This makes it easier to introduce new characters, since they could constantly be hiring, or be presumed to have a stable of fresh faces ready to join the fray.
What are your thoughts? If you've run a MOSH campaign before, how did you handle character death in your games? Do you see any issues with this approach that you think makes it a non-starter? Let me know!