Of Mooks, Plot Armor, and ttRPGs

[Campbell]

For what it's worth I personally do not experience much of a sense of loss when I lose a character I am playing. Losing something they care about (a loved one, a relationship, their sense of their own virtue) will tend to impact me a lot more emotionally because I get to experience it through the character. Once I know I am no longer playing a character I simply move onto the next one. I mean I will eventually reminisce about their journey at some later point, but in the moment the impact of the loss will not really hit in the same way it would if I were watching a TV show.

What does happen is needing to find a new frame of reference / new creative connections to the game. It's kind of like hitting the reset button. It's kind of exciting actually. I have to create a character worth finding out about that asks questions about the setting we don't know, that provokes us to find out more about the other characters. Then we all need to do the creative work necessary to pull this new character in, establish new relationships between the player characters, integrate them into the lives of established NPCs, etc. We have to see if the new alchemy works.

After finishing the 4 month "first season" of our L5R game I have a bit of an interesting set of decisions to make with the other players when we start back up. Bayushi Haruka's dramatic needs were answered when he chose family over clan by slaying his former daimyo and childhood friend, Bayushi Midori. There's just not much left there so I have to consider playing a different character when we get back to it. But that leaves a lot of questions open. Haruka's mother, Bayushi Akiara, is romantically entangled with his much older best friend Mirumoto Kusunoki (one of the other PCs). Haruka and Mirumoto Ryu (the other PC) also have a strong rivalry as duelists and both have strong connections to the Kakita family. A new character would bring in new connections, a new alchemy. Continuing to play Haruka would require new questions to answer. New dramatic needs to resolve.

Part of the reason I tend to view things the way that I do is that any character that is played will be dramatically changed over the course of our games and we do 4-6 month "seasons" alternating between games run by different GMs. We just finished up our first season of L5R. Next a different GM is taking over for a 3-4 month Seventh Sea game. Then I'll be doing a short run of Stonetop or Dishonored. Then back for the second season of our Exalted game.

 

[The Shadow]

What does happen is needing to find a new frame of reference / new creative connections to the game. It's kind of like hitting the reset button. It's kind of exciting actually. I have to create a character worth finding out about that asks questions about the setting we don't know, that provokes us to find out more about the other characters. Then we all need to do the creative work necessary to pull this new character in, establish new relationships between the player characters, integrate them into the lives of established NPCs, etc. We have to see if the new alchemy works.

This is it exactly! Introducing a new character to a story-based game is a big deal! It takes effort to make work. 'Alchemy' is exactly right - the results are unpredictable.

But when you do succeed in turning lead into gold, it's really something!

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

In Fate, it is virtually impossible for your character to die without your consent. That doesn't mean there's nothing at stake! Your goals can be foiled, you can be captured, you can receive wounds that last over many sessions, and so forth.

Why does death have to be on the table to make a combat dramatic?

(That said, my Fate group is generally so sneaky and devious that fighting usually means we screwed something up!)

First-edition 7th Sea was the same way. As John Wick said, dying isn't the worst that can happen - being utterly and completely caught is with no way to escape. 7th Sea followed the rule that people basically fall down, unless someone takes a specific action to kill someone who is down. Or if you have 'fallen down' and decide to get back up and keep fighting - the next hit kills you.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

After finishing the 4 month "first season" of our L5R game I have a bit of an interesting set of decisions to make with the other players when we start back up. Bayushi Haruka's dramatic needs were answered when he chose family over clan by slaying his former daimyo and childhood friend, Bayushi Midori. There's just not much left there so I have to consider playing a different character when we get back to it. But that leaves a lot of questions open. Haruka's mother, Bayushi Akiara, is romantically entangled with his much older best friend Mirumoto Kusunoki (one of the other PCs). Haruka and Mirumoto Ryu (the other PC) also have a strong rivalry as duelists and both have strong connections to the Kakita family. A new character would bring in new connections, a new alchemy. Continuing to play Haruka would require new questions to answer. New dramatic needs to resolve.

I love this. Scorpions especially in L5R are almost set up to be caught in impossible loyalty situations.

A long time ago, I was in a pre-Clan War L5R campaign as a Scorpion. We were on a quest to craft a weapon and one of the steps knocked us into sleep for years. We woke up, post-Coup, and the hostility towards my PC was pretty severe in the group.

Following weekend, I was at Gencon and happened to drink with John Wick. In my home campaign, my character was a student of his infamous NPC, 'the Honest Scorpion' Bayushi Yojiro. I brought up my dilemma from back home, and he gave me some amazing in-character advice. He basically said, "You have to accept you are the only person strong enough to save the Empire." It was amazing the world shift I felt for my character, and it really was one of the first times in gaming I felt a dramatic shift in my PC like that. I came home and took charge and we did save the Empire eventually. Seikuro even got to marry his pretty Kakita duelist - the tragedy was, in the end, he could never die as the Obsidian Hand took him over.

Love the thought you have going into this.

 

[Umbran]

If you are dead, and the story isn't over, you make a new character and the story continues. I don't understand why some people have so much trouble just making a new character.

They have trouble making a new one, due to how much they invested in the prior one. People often get attached to a character, and losing it is then a major thing. It can engage human feelings of loss, like a dear friend moving across the country is a loss.

"The story," they were invested in was the story of their character in the campaign, not the campaign as a whole. A new character is not, for them, a continuation of the old story, but a new story, that is calling for a new investment from them. Just like you can't swap in a new person for a friend who has left, some can't just swap in a new character. They effectively need to build a new relationship before the game experience is anywhere near equivalent.

 

[pemerton]

Here I am, I want to experience things that real life cannot (or will not) let me experience, and you all want to focus on how many trail rations people ate and spend endless hours counting hit points. I mean, I did it! I am not even totally averse to doing it again if it was coupled with the right additional elements, perhaps.

Torchbearer!

(I know you've tried it. I'm just here to beat the drum.)

 

[Umbran]

Character's individual story ended, yes. Neither the game's story nor the game itself ends with a character death; the game continues, as does its story...

But, as I mentioned to someone else - the player is often not invested in "the game's story" overall. They were invested in their character's story in the game.

and the player can always roll up another character (if not done already) and slot back into that story where-when it makes sense.

You referred to loss of "your playing piece" upthread. Imagine, for a moment, that the character isn't "a playing piece". It is something with more emotional attachment than that.

This isn't Black Leaf in the Chick tract, where the player gets punted from the game when her character dies.

Yeah, but it often isn't like misplacing a pawn from a plastic chess set you found in the closet. It can be more like misplacing the hand-carved knight you always favored from the chess set your grandfather gave you for your first chess club tournament win. You'll get over it, but you aren't just going to slap any old other piece in there immediately, either.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They have trouble making a new one, due to how much they invested in the prior one. People often get attached to a character, and losing it is then a major thing. It can engage human feelings of loss, like a dear friend moving across the country is a loss.

"The story," they were invested in was the story of their character in the campaign, not the campaign as a whole. A new character is not, for them, a continuation of the old story, but a new story, that is calling for a new investment from them. Just like you can't swap in a new person for a friend who has left, some can't just swap in a new character. They effectively need to build a new relationship before the game experience is anywhere near equivalent.

Yeah, I've just never felt or played that way. I enjoy my PCs, but when they die I move on. My old group played that way too, and none of us were ever broken up about having make a new PC. The story goes on.

 

[The Shadow]

Yeah, I've just never felt or played that way. I enjoy my PCs, but when they die I move on. My old group played that way too, and none of us were ever broken up about having make a new PC. The story goes on.

This is the part I don't get. If you're not very attached to your character, why is the possibility of them dying exciting? Ho hum, big deal, I'll just make another one!

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is the part I don't get. If you're not very attached to your character, why is the possibility of them dying exciting? Ho hum, big deal, I'll just make another one!

There's a place between not caring at all about your PC, and getting genuinely upset when they die. That's where I live.