Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8831860" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Nah. It just means the GM needs to be open to the idea that some costs are worse than (player) character death, and the players need to be invested enough to permit some costs to be worse than (player) character death.There is never a point in FMA where it's really in question whether the "player characters" (a precocious Transmuter Wizard and his Warforged Fighter brother--not sure what subclass there) are going to bite it. Yet the death of Maes Hughes is an absolutely devastating impact on both the two of them and their supporting cast.I know that the writing for a show is different from the writing for a game. But you can absolutely have a plot-driven story that doesn't use "plot armor" in the sense of invulnerability to lasting harm. It just means that you need to be more creative about the kinds of things that count as permanent, irrevocable harm. Using the Maes Hughes thing as an example, if the party has befriended a lovable goofball NPC that helps them out and is kind to them, then events which cause that NPC to be permanently killed--as in, there's no resurrection, no takebacks, character is just GONE and never coming back--is a HUGE blow, and something that can completely redefine the story, all without making it any less "plot-driven."Likewise, things like having PCs "come back wrong," or putting them on a timer to get a task done, or otherwise playing with/mitigating things can be incredibly useful. One could call it the "GM credit card" approach: the player is putting their death on credit, and will have to pay the piper eventually, but not quite yet. All sorts of delightful tension and story you can wring out of a plot like that (a big reason why Dungeon World's Last Breath move works the way it does.)</blockquote>

Verification