Orbit: Die Another Day!

[JSDiamond]

While addressing the 'character death' part of the rules, I thought: "Why do characters *have* to die?"  

Risk factor = fun. I understand this.  But Luke Skywalker doesn't die, and Han was only 'removed from the game' so to speak.  That's when it hit me: Characters don't die unless the player wants them to.  But they can (and will) be removed from the game by the GM if things go too awry.

It works like this:
Characters have an option when facing certain doom called the "Gonzo Action".  This action can bend the laws of physics slightly, -basically shoving a lot more action into a single round than normal.  To make the attempt they [the player] announces their intent and must describe in as much detail as needed what the character is doing.  

Success = Holy sh*t, it's an f'ing miracle! They survive!  Though succesful use of a Gonzo Action will *always* result in some damage to people and/or gear.  After all, this isn't the result of a nice, normal dice-rolling skill check.  It's a sloppy, wonderful, retarded, ballsy, Gonzo Action!    

Failure = If the player fails their Gonzo Action, the character is considered to be (depending on the situation) too maimed or broken (physically, mentally or emotionally, -or all three) to continue their 'adventuring' careers.  The GM removes the character from the game and the character is no longer role-played by the player.  The character is now a supporting character [significant npc] and if we ever see them again it will be an appearance in some future campaign, -played by the GM.

In this way, the character may still have a chance to come out of retirement some day (be returned to the player) for 'one last mission to save the galaxy' etc.  Or not.  

The alternative to all of this is (of course), that the player can just decide to have the character die to complete the adventure in some dramatic or meaningful way.

The point is that if a character dies, the final deciding factor isn't just because of rolling dice.

Thoughts?  Improvments?

JDiamond
www.orbit-rpg.com

[Mike Holmes]

Death is not a bad thing in and of itself. Premature character loss, however is. What does it matter if my character dies or is forced into retirement? I still can't play my character which is the part that sucks.

See my combat system rant for an idea of how I feel about the rest of this.

Mike

[Matt Wilson]

Death is not a bad thing in and of itself. Premature character loss, however is. What does it matter if my character dies or is forced into retirement? I still can't play my character which is the part that sucks.

Supporting Anecdote: a friend of mine once told me about a Twilight: 2000 game he was invited to join. They let him play the soldier who was near mortally injured. Whoo, did he have fun.

Hey, this is giving me an idea for another thread...

[Paul Czege]

Death is not a bad thing in and of itself. Premature character loss, however is. What does it matter if my character dies or is forced into retirement? I still can't play my character which is the part that sucks.

Arrowflight flirts with brilliance in its treatment of character death, but ultimately delivers a great heartbreaker of thinking inside the box, all the more painful perhaps, because of what could have been.

Characters have Mana and Spirit traits. Mana is the part of the character linked to the web of life, from which the power of magic is drawn. Spirit is the part of the character linked to gods and forces beyond the material world. The traits fluctuate in play. At the point of death, the game's cosmology has it that there is a necessary communication between Mana and Spirit, with each informing the other how to respond to dying. If a character dies with Spirit at 0, there is no communication from Spirit telling Mana to resolve its ties to the material world. The character becomes a soulless being attached bodily to the material world: a ghoul. If a character dies with Mana at 0, there is no communication from Mana telling Spirit to resolve its ties to the material world. The character becomes a bodiless spirit attached to the material world: a ghost.

The heartbreak? The character becomes an NPC.

Paul

[Mike Holmes]

The heartbreak? The character becomes an NPC.

Careful, you're going to insult Ron. :-)

Mike

[JSDiamond]

Mike, I totally agree with your point, but let me clarify.  I'm not saying that this is a broken system with one set of rules for combat and one set of rules for anything else.

What I had in mind was not combat (though it could work that way), but a what if the ship is going to crash into a black hole and you say, "What if I crosswire the nutrino-inductors causing the main quantum MacGuffin generator to overload...the engines will blow for sure, but it might push us clear!" -kind of situation where you [the player] tries the Gonzo Action to correct the problem.

Here's my view on the character death thing:
You've been playing this character for only a few sessions, maybe you don't care that much about him/her yet, so no big, -the character bites it.  Whip out a new character sheet and while everyone else is doing whatever, you make a new character and meet up at the spaceport.  

BUT let's say this character is "Zargon, Reaver of Worlds" and he's been your favorite character for a few *years*, so maybe it does matter to you that if something happens that he retire from his wounds (perhaps to return one day).

Or [again] maybe not.  It's your [player's] choice.  Maybe Zargon takes a bullet in the gut, in a back alley on some seedy pleasure planet and you say to the GM, "He dies without so much as a single mourner."  Imagine the looks on the group's faces.  But you play it that way because that's a great reason for the son he never knew to seek revenge!

The way I look at it, -it's either the above or the usual, "[Roll-roll-roll] Close but no cigar, he's dead."
 
Does that make more sense?  It's the same system, but the built in 'should I or shouldn't I' use the Gonzo Action is dictated by the situation.  Even a gamist maniac wouldn't try it unless they had to because failure means they're out of the game.  It's built-in munchkin proof.

Jeff

[Ron Edwards]

H'mmmm ...

Jeff, I'm still thinking of a way to have the "retirement" concept not be a punishment mechanic - deterrent, perhaps, yes, but also a possibly-desirable outcome (which I think you hint at).

It all depends on the character being able to come back. Is that possible in your scheme? More of a time-out than a pluck-it-out?

Best,
Ron

P.S. I'm not happy with the PC-becomes-NPC in Sorcerer either. That's why The Sorcerer's Soul lists half-a-dozen alternatives.

[Zak Arntson]

I recently answered this issue in Fighter-D Alpha.

During play, one Player piped up, noticing there wasn't an obvious way to die. My answer (and the rules of the game), "Well, when your Danger dice completely remove your regular dice, you're incapacitated until the scene's over. Or dead, your choice." After a second of consideration another Player said, "Ohhh! It's like a fighting game!" Bingo.

[JSDiamond]

Ron,
I know what you're saying.  The thing is I don't see it as a punishment, because the *usual* rpg resolution is that in a doomed situation, you're either dead or not dead.  So, to me this is a "glass half-full" deal.

Absolutely yes, you [the character] can come back.

Maybe I should write in some kind of 'one to a customer' rule?  Use the Gonzo Action at your [character's] peril.  
 
I'll have to work this out more.

Jeff
www.orbit-rpg.com

[Jonathan Walton]

It all depends on the character being able to come back. Is that possible in your scheme? More of a time-out than a pluck-it-out?

But coming back isn't the only option.  Finding Rods of Resurrection can get really boring after a while.

Given the popularity of ancestor worship (especially among pre-modern cultures), couldn't the dead character(s) continue to have a direct influence on the game, without having to come back?  For an example of this, check out R.Sean Borgstrom's mini-game http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~rsean/gaming/tree.htm">"Tree's Heart Dynasty."

Additionally, there's always reincarnation, which is about as popular as ancestor worship.  Mechanics for reconnecting with your past lives would be easy to work up.  And then there's always the delicious irony of having your true love come back as the wrong gender or species :)

Later.
Jonathan

[Mike Holmes]

Absolutely yes, you [the character] can come back.

Maybe I should write in some kind of 'one to a customer' rule?  Use the Gonzo Action at your [character's] peril.  

How soon can the character come back? If I can't bring the character back right away, I'm penalized until I can. Which is almost worse than just having the character die. Because, now I'm still attached to the character, but can't play him. At least with a death, I can forget about the old character and start a new one.

If I can "come back" right away, then what does that mean? I retired for five minutes? How is this functionally different from not having retired at all?

How long do I get to come back for? Indefinitely? Or do I have to return to retired status after an adventure or something? How often can I come back? Once? Many times?

Again, with all these choices I might as well be dead, or I might as well not have retired. I'm not seeing what it adds.

Perhaps if you retire a character you get to create a new character in the meanwhile, and then you essentially can bring in the old character every other adventure or something. So this gets you more than one character, and that might be seen as a benefit.

Still:

What I had in mind was not combat (though it could work that way), but a what if the ship is going to crash into a black hole and you say, "What if I crosswire the nutrino-inductors causing the main quantum MacGuffin generator to overload...the engines will blow for sure, but it might push us clear!" -kind of situation where you [the player] tries the Gonzo Action to correct the problem.

I don't get this situation. Isn't avoiding the balck hole a normal part of resolution? Such that a creative GM will interperet a failure not as the death of the characters but a trip through a wormhole to the other side of the galaxy?

What I'm saying is that as long as "failure" in the game is interpereted as "Increasing Conflict" instead of death, you'll never run into this situatation. Unless you and the players agree that it is dramatic for death to occur here.

I'm not seeing a need for a separate mechanic, just a less deterministic view on the outcome of action resolution. Applied to all forms of resolution. This would seem to meet your goals better, IMO.

Mike