Just FYI, in my 1st dio, I knocked off a ton of chars cuz I did do a big melee. Torpedo, Big Ben, Surefire, Rampage, about everybody who had a lame figure (imo), died. At the same time, I didn't work on their personalities or anything. I think my 1st dio, it showed what NOT to do. LOL! (I intro'd Crosshair in the beginning and he didnt' even end up with a real role!)

Being an old fogey now, if Joe chars start dying off, I need a good reason. I'd rather not see Wetsuit and Torpedo just get knocked off for the fun of it. Now, if you used a bunch of greenshirts who are used as fodder, cool. But characters are characters for a reason. I suppose the whole concept of the GSs is to allow the Joe side to have a huge army and people getting knocked off w/o wasting real chars.

I probably should've been more clear about development. I don't necessarily need a "where they came from" sequence. Some of the chars we just assume why they are there. I don't need to know WHY Torpedo joined up BUT if you do put in a blurb, it deepens the character. And it can be done in a couple of lines. "I joined cuz those Cobra twits killeded my brother!!!" Yet, you take a char like Gung Ho, nobody will question him. *shrug* I like to work on the characterizations of my figures so it deepens the storyline. Makes them more real and it helps when things go bad or when things go good. I worked hard on the relationship 'tween Bombstrike and Gung Ho in my latest 3.75".

Aliens and Starship Troopers are great in terms of dealing w/ mass chars and mass chars getting knocked off. Do we care that Frost, Baski, and the rest of the crew got knocked off? Not really, but at least there was a tiny bit of time given to the char so we KNOW who got killed. Starship Troopers had mass people dying w/ a core set of chars that the story revolved around. When Dizzy died, people actually cared.

This is just me. My feeling is, if you give us just a few chars to care about, the rest can be used as fodder in the end.