On "Illusionism" (+)

[hawkeyefan]

Because every time I've had this discussion in the past that's how it has worked out. I outlined the sort of things that I would consider significant based on 40 years of gaming with people and observing what they cared about. If you have some contrary suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Well first, what are the consequences of PC death, typically?

Is the character permanently gone? Depends on the game, of course, and/or the level of the characters.

If we assume yes, then does the player stop playing? Possible, I suppose, but most likely not. Instead, they’ll make a new character.

So what are the parameters for that? Does the new character start out at a lower level than the old one? Assuming the game has levels or some similar means of character advancement. Do they get equivalent gear? Assuming gear is specialized in some manner.

So… loss of level and gear? If those things matter in the game in question.

Those seem to be the big ones, I think. Are there others?

 

[Lanefan]

Speaking ludically, either you can keep playing, or you can't. Other consequences can at best limit your available set of choices until you eventually wind up in a failure state. To avoid a game with a player elimination failure state you need to set a strict limit on the game duration. Then you can evaluate some other victory condition for success/failure (classically "who has the most victory points after round 4?"), which is a pretty rare thing to do in most long-form RPGs and more of a one-shot or short game thing.

Narratively, a consequence can be significant and significantly limit or alter the course of a events a character (or player, depending on the game) wants to occur, but that doesn't have ludic impact. The two aren't interchangeable.

Except that speaking ludically (whatever the hell that means), either you can keep playing or you can keep playing.

That you might be playing a different character is immaterial to the fact that you are, in the end, continuing to play.

This isn't Black Leaf in the Chick tract where if your character dies you-as-player get tossed out of the game. (has anyone here ever heard of anyone playing it that way in anything longer than a one-shot or con game?)

 

[Lanefan]

So… loss of level and gear? If those things matter in the game in question.

Those seem to be the big ones, I think. Are there others?

Major mechanical loss conditions I can think of:

--- death
--- petrification
--- level loss (or system equivalent)
--- wealth/gear/item loss or destruction
--- loss of a limb
--- big reduction of a stat (or system equivalent e.g. permanent loss of mind, physical weakness, etc.)
--- capture or imprisonment (such that the character cannot be rescued)
--- irreversible polymorph (including mind) into something unplayable e.g. an ordinary rabbit (Bunnies and Burrows excluded)
--- irreversible domination i.e. you become someone else's puppet
--- loss of soul or spirit (while otherwise remaining alive, or faking it really well)

Other than the forever-capture piece (and there's still time!) I've inflicted all of these on PCs at some point(s) or other.

 

[tomBitonti]

Except that speaking ludically (whatever the hell that means), either you can keep playing or you can keep playing.

That you might be playing a different character is immaterial to the fact that you are, in the end, continuing to play.

This isn't Black Leaf in the Chick tract where if your character dies you-as-player get tossed out of the game. (has anyone here ever heard of anyone playing it that way in anything longer than a one-shot or con game?)

Well, “stop playing”, as I’ve seen it, means being taken out of play for anywhere from an hour or for the rest of the evening. That depending on the players speed at creating a new character and the ability of the GM to put the new player into play.

”Stop playing” also has meant returning to play absent the possibly deep history of the character in the ongoing story. The old character might take away too much information or might have been carrying too much of the story.

TomB

 

[Celebrim]

”Stop playing” also has meant returning to play absent the possibly deep history of the character in the ongoing story. The old character might take away too much information or might have been carrying too much of the story.

I don't think that it's appropriate to focus on the idea of "stop playing" as the reason character death (or equivalent loss of a PC) is the reason why it's the only really significant consequence in an RPG, to the extent that if you give players the choice you'll find that the only things "worse than death" are things that also take away the character.

I think the issue is that players have a relationship to their player characters equivalent to a person has to a highly valued material possession of some sort which they value not primarily for its cost, but because of the journey they have taken with it and the sentimental value they attach to it. Think of the value attached to an old car which you've done the work on yourself or to a painting that you yourself painted or a vase you made on a potter's wheel and you kept because it was the first one you really felt proud of or that house that was a fixer upper that you made into a home or your original wedding ring - whatever you can think of that you value above just being a thing.

Not every player does that, but in my experience the vast majority do so such that losing that PC hurts as much as losing something "real". Sure, you can replace it without too much trouble in most campaigns, but you will as you say lose the story the PC is carrying and the history the PC had that you'd built. It won't be the same, at least not at first.

And the reason that no other consequence is significant is because no matter how invested the player is in other elements of the story, they've never invested nearly as much time into those things as they have into the PC. So the vast majority of players in a long running campaign will always prioritize the PC over any other story element - winning, NPCs, fictional positioning, etc. Generally speaking, players will treat any crash they can walk away from as a good landing. They may want vengeance on an NPC afterwards. They may want to restore their PC's name and honor afterwards. They may want to do a lot of things to recover from the consequence, but the point is that that is fun and they get to do it with their PC. None of that is really failure. That's emotionally success with minor consequences that propel the story forward. That's more history to the PC that increases the PCs value.

Things that permanently cripple a PC can be equivalent to death, and indeed can be perceived as worth that death because they attack the mental image of the PC and in some systems are harder to recover from than death - a more permanent loss. But that has I think already been well covered, both by myself and Lanefan's creative list of ways to fail.

 

[Arilyn]

There are many players who experience meaningful consequences for their characters in games with no death. There are many games where death is not even in the ruleset. Prince Valiant, Good Society and Tales from the Loop are just some examples off the top of my head. Superhero games are no death or rare death and Fate leaves it more or less in players' hands.

I've played and run a lot of different games over decades, and in my experience, there are many meaningful consequences, outside death. It will depend on the game and the moods and desires of the group.

I can play DCC and have fun seeing how long I can keep my badly rolled elf alive. I can also enjoy a "Jane Austen" style game of high society, balls and achieving a good match. Whether my character is scrabbling through a dark dungeon or pining over a disappointing ball, I assure you I'm feeling the consequences equally. If I'm running games, so are my players.

 

[Pedantic]

I don't think that it's appropriate to focus on the idea of "stop playing" as the reason character death (or equivalent loss of a PC) is the reason why it's the only really significant consequence in an RPG, to the extent that if you give players the choice you'll find that the only things "worse than death" are things that also take away the character.

I think the issue is that players have a relationship to their player characters equivalent to a person has to a highly valued material possession of some sort which they value not primarily for its cost, but because of the journey they have taken with it and the sentimental value they attach to it. Think of the value attached to an old car which you've done the work on yourself or to a painting that you yourself painted or a vase you made on a potter's wheel and you kept because it was the first one you really felt proud of or that house that was a fixer upper that you made into a home or your original wedding ring - whatever you can think of that you value above just being a thing.

Not every player does that, but in my experience the vast majority do so such that losing that PC hurts as much as losing something "real". Sure, you can replace it without too much trouble in most campaigns, but you will as you say lose the story the PC is carrying and the history the PC had that you'd built. It won't be the same, at least not at first.

I don't know that I relate to character death that way, nor do I think my experience supports it in others. Generally in long campaigns character death is a solid opportunity to lay whatever concept is at the top of the pile next. In fact, I've started working in opportunities for regular character retirement to make that easier.

Maybe that's partially because I GM a lot more than I play, and I like thinking with systems, so I always have concepts and ideas ready to go. My disappointment with a dead PC has a lot more to do with going bankrupt in a board game; it's of course a given we can set it back up and play again, and I will obviously come in with another character, but I've still lost. Some choice I made was wrong, and I will need to figure out why and learn from it for later.

This calculus changes when death is temporary, as then it doesn't necessarily become a loss state.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Not every player does that, but in my experience the vast majority do so such that losing that PC hurts as much as losing something "real". Sure, you can replace it without too much trouble in most campaigns, but you will as you say lose the story the PC is carrying and the history the PC had that you'd built. It won't be the same, at least not at first.

This is an interesting point, and part of why I posed the question about player choice. What if the player's want (to keep playing that character) is at odds with what the character wants (some goal that may result in their death)? What will the player choose then? To keep playing their character or to honor what the character has been about?

Or, as in the game I ran which I was thinking of when I asked the question, what if the player had to choose between letting the character die, or having the character changed in a significant way? Not in a way that may as well be character death (which I think describes most of the examples provided by @Lanefan, though some I think were temporary or can be readily fixed) but in a way that matters to the fiction.

I find it hard to separate the kind of care you've described that a player may have for a character with care of the events that happen in the fiction, and so I don't see it as so clearly a preference of one over the other... I don't know if "most players" would choose to keep their character alive in these cases. Not if they care about the fiction in this kind of deep way.

 

[Celebrim]

There are many players who experience meaningful consequences for their characters in games with no death. There are many games where death is not even in the ruleset. Prince Valiant, Good Society and Tales from the Loop are just some examples off the top of my head...I can also enjoy a "Jane Austen" style game of high society, balls and achieving a good match. Whether my character is scrabbling through a dark dungeon or pining over a disappointing ball, I assure you I'm feeling the consequences equally. If I'm running games, so are my players.

I admit I don't have a lot of experience with games like that. The closest I have is running my SIPS system for my very young children where I felt large and meaningful and persistent consequences were just inappropriate to the maturity of the players. The very young players felt the consequences of "skinned knees" and "scared" and "crying" perhaps too keenly as we RPed out being children in a fairy tale setting.

I've played a "Jane Austen" style card game a few times where the goal is marrying the most eligible bachelor and death is reaching the marriage stage and finding yourself doomed to an unpleasant and/or lonely life as an old maid, and defeat is seeing your rival live happily ever after. And that's fun and all but I'm not sure how it is relevant to an "Jane Austen" style RPG unless you have some loss of status, reputation, and honor such that you are forced to retire the character in disgrace, hidden away in the attic and no one mentions you anymore. Otherwise, I can't see that such a game really has any failure beyond, the game has gotten boring.

Which isn't to say that it's a bad game, I'm just not sure it tickles the itch on certain aesthetics of play.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't know that I relate to character death that way, nor do I think my experience supports it in others. Generally in long campaigns character death is a solid opportunity to lay whatever concept is at the top of the pile next. In fact, I've started working in opportunities for regular character retirement to make that easier.

I don't have any players that go that far, but I do have a player or two that just love making PC's and have a stack of them ready to go for when or if their PC dies. So yeah, I can imagine that there is some variation in how people relate to the PC's, and that's probably influenced by how disposable the processes of play make a PC (no sense getting attached if your PC is going to die quickly). I'm just expressing what I've seen as the normal from players over the last 40 years.