Death and Storytelling

[5ekyu]

With respect, if you have to specifically design your metaphysics and embed options before play begins to not have death be an end to a story, that says to be that death is not particularly friendly to story. It weakens the "not an enemy" posit considerably. "You aren't my enemy, but I have to behave *just so* around you so as to not have you bite my butt." Maybe not an enemy, but it is an aggressive animal staring at you and growling [emoji14]

For D&D at least, there's already elements design for this - this is what resurrection and raise dead are for. No further work needs to be done in the game to make it not the end of the story. If you really need the character in play, some benefactor can do it an exact a price.

But, as a general thing... being present after death is a game conceit that is a poor fit for many stories. My Ashen Stars game, for example - the game itself does not have a specific "come back from death" mechanical element. But it is Space Opera - there could be a clone, or someone from an alternate universe, an uploaded version on a computer, or some time travel shenanigans to bring the character back. But most of those would read as pretty forced, unless the PCs initiated them. It just doesn't quite fit.

Dont know your setting but when i choose/create and adapt a setting one of the core, key, most defining elements is. "Death, before and after" so its not "changing my metaphysics", its establishing how these aspects shape the setting for ages prior to the introduction of the PCs. (Or how the setting is reeling and reacting if the timeframe is basicalky linking these changes to the pcs.)

In my current scifi game, the possibility of return from death thru "soulcaches"' was an element that shapes a lot of the setting and was introduced early on as PCs were sent to recover some dead guy for rejuvey with a bonus if they beat the clock (cheaper rejuvey) and brought back intact body.

This gets to me to be the core point - some GMs give relatively,lityle thought to the subject but its not dice that kills you or story but that lack of thought, lack of consideration and lack of integration between death(before and after) and the "world" they jumped into and started playing dice to see who wins.

The story usually comes from choices... flavored by many elements, not just dice.

 

[5ekyu]

I'd argue pretty fiercely that this is a function of playstyle. In my game, there are simply no npcs out there who are easily available who can raise the dead (or cast other, higher level, spells). You want that? Find a pc who can do it.

Agree.. Death (before and after) is a huge setying defining aspect and it varies greatly from table to table.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Hey, if I want a comforting mantra, I can have a comforting mantra!
As a player, I much prefer to be the kind of player that can accept character death when it does happen than the kind that throws a sulk. In a game fueled by imagination, it’s an opportunity to bring someone new to life. And if it’s a memorable end, well, what more could a PC ask for?

Indeed, ostensibly Sturm’s purpose in the tale was to die heroically. This is yet again one of those instances where the D&D story and game aspects can run into each other. Jherrick the bard died because I failed a saving throw, alone in a room with a pair of ghouls. Ned Stark died because GRR Martin’s story would be moved forward by it. Those two deaths are oceans apart.

"That's what I tell myself..." means, "That's how I rationalize something that may not be so good." If we need a comforting mantra, maybe we should instead look at our practices, and see if they meet our needs.

Of course. Strum Brighblade stands on the parapet, ready to face down Kitiara as she comes in on Skye at the High Clerist's Tower... that was a worthy death, a fine end to a character.

But then, that death was planned by an author. I mean, earlier it is foreshadowed. He's told, "We do not mourn the loss of those who die fulfilling their destinies." Weis and Hickman said, quite candidly, "We did not "kill" Sturm arbitrarily. The noble Knight of Solamnia was intended to be a tragic hero from the first inception of the project."

 

[Umbran]

Dont know your setting but when i choose/create and adapt a setting one of the core, key, most defining elements is. "Death, before and after" so its not "changing my metaphysics", its establishing how these aspects shape the setting for ages prior to the introduction of the PCs. (Or how the setting is reeling and reacting if the timeframe is basicalky linking these changes to the pcs.)

Whether it is done before play begins, or after, it is still establishing that death, in some sense, is not final. You may not be changing your metaphysics after the fact, but you are molding your metaphysics around the issue of death, and sometimes that is formative, and terribly inconvenient, to your genre.

Looking to my left at a small collection of rulebooks, I see three games in which life after death is not "natural" for most characters. Shadowrun, Leverage, and Star Wars. I'd have to make some notable changes in the world as known to have characters continue after death in each of those. In Leverage, especially, which has no supernatural elements, and the technology is really only early 21st century, living on after death would be difficult in the game.

 

[5ekyu]

Whether it is done before play begins, or after, it is still establishing that death, in some sense, is not final. You may not be changing your metaphysics after the fact, but you are molding your metaphysics around the issue of death, and sometimes that is formative, and terribly inconvenient, to your genre.

Looking to my left at a small collection of rulebooks, I see three games in which life after death is not "natural" for most characters. Shadowrun, Leverage, and Star Wars. I'd have to make some notable changes in the world as known to have characters continue after death in each of those. In Leverage, especially, which has no supernatural elements, and the technology is really only early 21st century, living on after death would be difficult in the game.

Sorty but to me life and death and how that works in a setting and how the inhabitants perceive it and how it affected them is neither concenient, inconvenient or a "different" or "separate" thing from the genre.

Its a core feature.

Its literally and figuratively part of the dna of a setting.

That you see them as somehow apart from each other is to me baffling, but if it works for you thats great.

After all as i stated, it comes down to choices.

If you see death as enemy to the "stories" in your game, you should choose genre, setting, rules to suit that with after-death as part of the dna.

If you are not looking for that, you make different choices.
Either way, hopefully, fun is fpund.

 

[Umbran]

Sorty but to me life and death and how that works in a setting and how the inhabitants perceive it and how it affected them is neither concenient, inconvenient or a "different" or "separate" thing from the genre.

Its a core feature.

Its literally and figuratively part of the dna of a setting.

Yes, that's my point. It is a part of the metaphysic that's pretty central. In many settings and genres, "the way it works," is... when you are dead, you are dead, and the character does not persist in the story beyond that point, and *that* is pretty central. I was able to name three such just by looking at rules I have in line of sight at this moment. In some cases, inserting the ability to stick around after death is problematic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In Leverage, especially, which has no supernatural elements, and the technology is really only early 21st century, living on after death would be difficult in the game.

Leverage's storytelling style includes a lot of back-up-and-show-what-really-happened conciets. So one of the team could quite easily die, only to have it revealed latter that it was faked as part of the elaborate con.

 

[5ekyu]

Leverage's storytelling style includes a lot of back-up-and-show-what-really-happened conciets. So one of the team could quite easily die, only to have it revealed latter that it was faked as part of the elaborate con.

And that kind of edges into areas where say a game may not have "ressurection" per se but may have various forms of scene efiting or hero points or plot points so that "death" can be avoided as far as death by mechanics os concerned, to various degrees.

 

[Les Moore]

Who here has watched Babylon 5? It was a story conceived to take 5 seasons to tell, 5 years in normal time. A *lot* can happen to people in 5 years, and in several cases things happened to people on the show, that led to them leaving. How did JMS deal with that?

Well, the first was to never have an important plotline that was linked to one and only one character. The characters of Na'toth, Lennier, and Vir were there in significant part to act as backup for G'kar, Delenn, and Londo. If anything had happened such that the actor of one of the ambassadors had to leave the show, there was an assistant who could pick up their plotlines.

But, usually in most games, I don't bother with that level of protection. If a character dies, plotlines that they were connected to are either picked up by another character voluntarily, or they just die. So be it.

And, to the point about fudging - I do occasionally fudge, but it is not to protect PCs from death that would kill off one of my precious, precious plots. For me, fudging is a tool for controlling short-term ebb and flow of play, not for managing long term plots.

Notice here also, the story here is the campaign, i. e. Babylon 5. It's not the story of one character.

I have a campaign where the sacrifices of past PCs now affects the story. NPCs in town have pieces of maps of the dungeon. Information like
'muffle the supper triangle, in the great hall, in the even of melee, the triangle is an intruder alarm'. This information cost previous characters
a lot of work, hit points, and sometimes even got some of them killed. The story lives on, and the characters were, and still are, a part of it.

 

[Umbran]

Leverage's storytelling style includes a lot of back-up-and-show-what-really-happened conciets. So one of the team could quite easily die, only to have it revealed latter that it was faked as part of the elaborate con.

Those flashbacks are player-initiated, not under the GM's control. If the players don't do that? Doing those flashbacks generally requires a successful roll on a check. If they don't make it? If the character is not just play-dead, but dead-dead?

And, really, the particulars of a given system are beside the point. There are people, many of them around here, in fact, that feel that coming back from the dead generally ruins fun, by taking the danger out of the game. If you never really die, what's at risk?

So, while inserting ways to not die is fine for some, it is not actually a way to sweep the issue under the carpet. Sometimes characters are gong to die, and their story will end abruptly and in an unsatisfying way, story-wise.