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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8978839" data-attributes="member: 4937">I've never seen a case where the player decides to martyr their character for a cause or ideology.&nbsp; The players wants generally outweigh what the character wants, and beyond that most of my players will play a character with very simple self-centered wants so that the hypothetical conflict you are describing just doesn't arise.&nbsp; It would be great if I had lots of players over the years that prioritized playing characters with deep and complex ethics and a willingness to die in some cause, but that's not my experience.&nbsp; I think games lately that have been pulling death and other long term consequences from the fiction may be doing so because they want to free up players to care about ethics without worrying about whether they need to make a sacrifice to advance the story, but first of all that isn't the same thing as choosing to sacrifice for the sake of the story, and secondly I'm not sure that goal logically follows from the rule change.Yeah, but do they?&nbsp;&nbsp; A lot of them play with a combination of Challenge and Fantasy aesthetics where they want to overcome obstacles in preferably ways that make them feel cool and empowered.&nbsp; They want to Discover the hidden secrets and profit and progress, loving when they *ding&quot; and get powerful and capable playing pieces, and being able to laugh when they reminisce about the cool things their PC's have done.&nbsp; They aren't particularly interested in exploring idealism versus utilitarianism, exploring tragedy and loss, or imagining attachments and loyalties to NPCs that then they'd need to protect.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8978839, member: 4937"] I've never seen a case where the player decides to martyr their character for a cause or ideology. The players wants generally outweigh what the character wants, and beyond that most of my players will play a character with very simple self-centered wants so that the hypothetical conflict you are describing just doesn't arise. It would be great if I had lots of players over the years that prioritized playing characters with deep and complex ethics and a willingness to die in some cause, but that's not my experience. I think games lately that have been pulling death and other long term consequences from the fiction may be doing so because they want to free up players to care about ethics without worrying about whether they need to make a sacrifice to advance the story, but first of all that isn't the same thing as choosing to sacrifice for the sake of the story, and secondly I'm not sure that goal logically follows from the rule change. Yeah, but do they? A lot of them play with a combination of Challenge and Fantasy aesthetics where they want to overcome obstacles in preferably ways that make them feel cool and empowered. They want to Discover the hidden secrets and profit and progress, loving when they *ding" and get powerful and capable playing pieces, and being able to laugh when they reminisce about the cool things their PC's have done. They aren't particularly interested in exploring idealism versus utilitarianism, exploring tragedy and loss, or imagining attachments and loyalties to NPCs that then they'd need to protect. [/QUOTE]

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