#also... does Sangfielle have an acronym? I realized as I was making the chart that I don't have an acronym for it...

[clover-punk]

There is an older joke that I've seen a lot on Friends at the Table tumblr about how it's not a real season of F@tT unless someone loses a hand. I've always liked the alternate 'joke', it's not a real season of Friends at the Table unless a PC shoots themself in the foot (sacrificing themself in way that has major consequences for their epilogue... often by dying) at/near the end of the season.

I've seen a lot of people thinking about this lately (particularly in regards to an emerging pattern from Dre's PC's... looking at you Valence and Chine...) and it got me thinking because some players are much more prone to this than others.

So I made a table. Then I realized that you cannot put an excel table in Tumblr so I wrote it all out in a list. Then I just attached a screenshot of the table anyway. Spoilers under the read more for all 7 main seasons. (I didn't include Bluff City, Road to PARTIZAN or other live games, but if you can think of examples that should be included from those or anything I missed from the main seasons please let me know!)

x - Character Dies

o - other sacrifice that fits the loose description of "shooting oneself in the foot".

*I was unsure how to mark these, but decided to include them anyway

By Season:

Autumn in Hieron: 1 major break down by Ali as Hella. Calhoun :(

Counter/Weight: 3 deaths to defeat Rigour by Art, Dre, and Silvia. I really struggled with how to count this one because everyone makes very big sacrifices in the finale, that’s like the whole point… so in the end I decided to just count the deaths. Audi wasn’t a PC at the time, but I’m still counting them as a point for Jack. Then I debated whether and how to count Kobus/Loyalty’s other candidate whom I cannot remember the name of and Jillian Red but decided to just give one death point each to Dre and Silvi.  

Winter in Hieron: Nothing. There were a few things I considered putting here put none of them felt on the same level as other things I am marking.

Twilight Mirage: 2 people leaving, 1 death, and Grand Mag (need I say more?) Once again, I debated for a long time how to mark Fourteen because the dying was just their class from the beginning, but I gave this one to them. Ali as Tender and Janine as [Signet] get points for leaving the Mirage because it makes me sad personally.

Spring in Hieron: 3 members of the Understanding. Unsubtle plug to go read my fic An Understanding if you want to feel sad about this with me.

PARTIZAN: 2 (pointless) deaths. I expect to make several enemies by calling these pointless, but I’m very much on team if Valence were here things would be better, and for that matter the same goes for SI. Powerful, but pointless. I went back and forth on whether to give Jack any points for Clem and eventually decided to leave her off entirely because she didn't actually die and just came back as a powerful NPC.

Sangfielle: 1 death. Chine :(

Player total:

Ali: 3 (no deaths) Art: 3 (2 deaths) Dre: 3 (all 3 deaths*) Jack: 2 (2 deaths*) Janine: 2 (no deaths) Keith: 0 (How???) Silvia: 2 (1 death*)

In summary, as I expected, Art and Dre are leading the pack on character shooting themselves in the foot, with Dre leading on actual deaths.

Surprisingly, Ali also ties both of them overall with a total of three which I was not expecting.

Jack, Janine, and Silvia each have two points, and between 0-2 deaths which was about what I expected, although I was surprised that Jack is technically tied with Art for second place on deaths.

The most surprising thing - and I'm not sure why this surprised me per say but it was an outlier - is that I could come up with no examples of Keith's characters shooting themselves in the foot.

Anywho, that was a lot of charting and thinking just to have evidence that this happens all the time. Once again, if you can think of examples of anything I missed that should be added to these scores please let me know.