Tragedy

[sabrinathecat]

Plus in spite of everything, Londo kept making poor decisions which lead him to a result he was trying to avoid.

Tragedy in Fantasy: several of the Ravenloft novels cover that. I, Strahd isn't the only example. Some were better than others (as is the case with any series of novels with mixed authors).

As for Tragedy in RPG, again, several of the Ravenloft modules cover this, as do a few non-ravenloft modules. There was one nice low-level mod (I think it was in a Dungeon Mag) set in a bog. You could roll or just decide what the motivations for the mis-matched lovers was.

One key to remember: Tragedy is not the same thing as sad. I cannot tell you how many times some idiot news reporter refers to something as a tragedy, when it isn't. Tragedy in not just sad, but someone causing their own downfall, usually through pride, and usually inadvertently. Tragedy is not the same as sad, nor is it the same as irony.

 

[Umbran]

I think Londo is a good example of a tragic figure in fairly modern science fiction.

So far, one could argue that GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire is heading to ultimately be a tragedy. It certainly has several tragic characters.

Peter David wrote a series centering on a character named Apropos (Sir Apropos of Nothing) who is pretty tragic.

Jack Torrence in Stephen King's "The Shining" is tragic.

Gollum, and to a lesser extent Boromir, are tragic figures in LotR.

Raislin Majere, in Dragonlance is pretty tragic.

Shane in "Walking Dead"...

So, I think that tragedy and the Sci-fi or fantasy genres are pretty much orthogonal. The trappings and tropes of the genres don't impact whether the stories or characters are tragic or not.

Now, doing tragedy well in a RPG would seem to me to be pretty difficult. In tragedies, the protagonists *lose*. You have to have some players really invested in their dramatic type to willfully lose.

 

[Scott DeWar]

Job: A comedy of justice is one tragedy after another in an ironic setting IIRC.