Some adventurers go out in a blaze of glory. Some die ignominious deaths. Some retire to a peaceful life of leisure and comfort. These old retired adventurers can be great NPCs in a campaign. They have experience and wisdom, and they can still be badass if it comes to a fight, though they may be reluctant to get involved and want to let the PCs handle things. They can be almost anything you want or need in your campaign, so consider using "retired adventurer" as a prominent NPC type in your games.
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
That's fair I suppose. It does sometimes take a fresh perspective to take a third option between two extremely in-your-face options. I still don't see why these "faster" ships couldn't have simply hyper jumped away upon exiting the Raddus earlier when there were other Resistance ships around (or why they couldn't have been used earlier to leave), but maybe there's some unstated movie reason hyperjumps don't work at the moment? I think I remember there being a type of Imperial Star Destroyer in the Expanded Universe that was designed to prevent hyperjumps somehow with gravity. Perhaps the movie is borrowing that idea with Snoke's massive ship. Even just a throwaway line of "it's too big to run away from" could work for general audiences if so.
So comic-wise, is this actually Jim's heroic sacrifice idea? Or is he being upstaged by Sally here. I'd first thought that this might have been something Sally had alluded to at the last session's end, but no, it was explicitly thoughts about Snoke. Maybe it's a combination of both ideas; Jim not actually wanting to self-sacrifice Poe just yet, and Sally wanting something to happen to Snoke when the collision happens. That just leaves Holdo to be chosen to pilot the Raddus as no one else wants a character they're playing to bite the dust and NPCs likely won't go through with it.
Transcript
Leia: Crew to the hangar deck! We’re evacuating to Crait in faster ships.
Admiral Holdo: They’ll pick off half the ships before you’re out of range.
Admiral Holdo: His plan is brilliant, as always. But he has too much life to live.
Admiral Holdo: {cradling the unconscious Poe’s face} Remember...
Leia: Are you saying... you want to pilot the Raddus into Snoke’s ship? You can’t!
Admiral Holdo: I’m prepared for this, General. I served in the Droid Wars.
Leia: The Droid Wars? That was...
GM: Over fifty years ago.
Admiral Holdo: I’m 76.
Leia: You’re 76 years old? You look great!!
Admiral Holdo: I’ve seen too much noise and disorder. I’m looking forward to glorious silence.
Leia: Maybe you just need a really good nap?