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character death?
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<blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 9256812" data-attributes="member: 20564"><p>Combat-to-the-death as common stakes has a lot to answer for. This isn't the same thing exactly as character death, but it is highly tied to it in some systems.</p><p></p><p>The following has to do with character death when lethal combat is a frequent way to overcome challenges. A superhero game where it is possible to die but if someone does - on either side - it may be the only death for an entire campaign, is not what I am talking about.</p><p></p><p>Normal story telling has up and down beats. Those down beats are important in setting up tension, in showing progression, in a lot of different ways. This has been going on since before recorded history. Hold onto this for a second while I make another point.</p><p></p><p>Players get attached to characters. Permanent character death therefore is generally unfun. Mind you, not always - I've had epic deaths, I've been the intentional martyr. But in general, unplanned permanent character death isn't fun. Unfun things are to be avoided in a game.</p><p></p><p>When you try to combine these two points, you get something interesting. In a game without common lethal combat, you can have upbeats and downbeats and they are just parts of the plot. If the villain escapes with the last piece for the Doomsday Device(TM) it's just a fork in the plot, and leads to attempting to stop them in their Evil Lair (also TM) as the Clock of Doom counts down to zero. All of these are fun. You can put consequences on the PCs, and you can go hard with them, because character failure is not player unfun.</p><p></p><p>But in a game with combat-to-the-death as a common challenge stake, character failure will commonly lead to character death. This is where many players end up conflating character failure and player failure - because it is in this scenario. Characters losing a battle can lead to player unfun of permanent character death.</p><p></p><p>Which means that it's a lot harder to do those downbeats in the most common challenge type. As a general group (and there are exceptions), weekly PC death isn't seen as a sign of a good campaign. So the GM needs to softball - either make sure that it's almost always upbeats - characters win without deaths, or go soft on consequences of what was presented as lethal stakes.</p><p></p><p>In other words, GMs can't call in the most common consequences and therefore generally goes easier on the players because the downbeats lead to player unfun, vs. other games where the GM can use a full range of potential consequences and let them have real chances to occur. Between these two debuffs to what the GM can do, common-lethal-combat games therefore are easier than games where downbeats are fun and the GM can really lean into them.</p><p></p><p>D&D pretends to have permanent character death, so it has all the disadvantages I mentioned above, but in reality has both a good buffer between fear-of-death and actual death, and even past that is "impermanent character death" once that characters hit level 5ish, either through a party member or an NPC (paid/favors/etc). Impermanent means they will come back, perhaps at the end of the combat (revivify), or if not later in the session or next session. Which, since "player sitting idle unable to play" is also unfun, is also something to be avoided but at least isn't quite as unfun as losing all the bonds, history and such that are part of a character who has been played.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Blue, post: 9256812, member: 20564"] Combat-to-the-death as common stakes has a lot to answer for. This isn't the same thing exactly as character death, but it is highly tied to it in some systems. The following has to do with character death when lethal combat is a frequent way to overcome challenges. A superhero game where it is possible to die but if someone does - on either side - it may be the only death for an entire campaign, is not what I am talking about. Normal story telling has up and down beats. Those down beats are important in setting up tension, in showing progression, in a lot of different ways. This has been going on since before recorded history. Hold onto this for a second while I make another point. Players get attached to characters. Permanent character death therefore is generally unfun. Mind you, not always - I've had epic deaths, I've been the intentional martyr. But in general, unplanned permanent character death isn't fun. Unfun things are to be avoided in a game. When you try to combine these two points, you get something interesting. In a game without common lethal combat, you can have upbeats and downbeats and they are just parts of the plot. If the villain escapes with the last piece for the Doomsday Device(TM) it's just a fork in the plot, and leads to attempting to stop them in their Evil Lair (also TM) as the Clock of Doom counts down to zero. All of these are fun. You can put consequences on the PCs, and you can go hard with them, because character failure is not player unfun. But in a game with combat-to-the-death as a common challenge stake, character failure will commonly lead to character death. This is where many players end up conflating character failure and player failure - because it is in this scenario. Characters losing a battle can lead to player unfun of permanent character death. Which means that it's a lot harder to do those downbeats in the most common challenge type. As a general group (and there are exceptions), weekly PC death isn't seen as a sign of a good campaign. So the GM needs to softball - either make sure that it's almost always upbeats - characters win without deaths, or go soft on consequences of what was presented as lethal stakes. In other words, GMs can't call in the most common consequences and therefore generally goes easier on the players because the downbeats lead to player unfun, vs. other games where the GM can use a full range of potential consequences and let them have real chances to occur. Between these two debuffs to what the GM can do, common-lethal-combat games therefore are easier than games where downbeats are fun and the GM can really lean into them. D&D pretends to have permanent character death, so it has all the disadvantages I mentioned above, but in reality has both a good buffer between fear-of-death and actual death, and even past that is "impermanent character death" once that characters hit level 5ish, either through a party member or an NPC (paid/favors/etc). Impermanent means they will come back, perhaps at the end of the combat (revivify), or if not later in the session or next session. Which, since "player sitting idle unable to play" is also unfun, is also something to be avoided but at least isn't quite as unfun as losing all the bonds, history and such that are part of a character who has been played. [/QUOTE]
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