Tragedy, A game of glory and death.

[M. Burrell]

Sirs,
It recently struck me that the games I've been playing haven't been half as suited to character-driven plot as I would like them to be. I concluded that what was found to be awesome and moving in a season of games was not the intention of the game's system but the happy accident of well-meaning players and a willingness to digress from the point of the game and let the characters interact meaningfully. Different games fare differently, of course, but with things like Dungeons and Dragons I find I'm ignoring just about everything (or going through the motions) to get to what feels like the real 'big picture' of a progressing plot.
I'm aware that there are games both commercial and indie that address my complaint in a succinct and positive, can-do attitude. But I'd like to share with you some ideas for a role-playing game of that seeks to emulate the literary genre of Tragedy.
Now, it might be because I'm a little morbid sometimes or perhaps it's because I'm British, but I just love a play or a book where blood is spilt and the repercussions echo down through the narrative leaving the survivors either mad, broken or wicked. While horrific, I assure you, it's the best kind of story. Of course defeating your nemesis and delivering that manly speech is still possible, but, as Hamlet learned, there's nothing more motivating than knowing you have just moments with which to make that final blow.
I suppose it ultimately comes down to that sense of 'knowing' - fate, perhaps. It might be a downer to some, but I picture a game where all the players must appreciate that their character's fate is to ultimately suffer and die. A candle burns brightest before it is extinguished, or however the adage goes. An important aspect of this game's concept, I feel, should be a strong fatalistic theme - expressed in both style and system.

Anyway, enough prattle and onto musing:
A setting for any tragedy is important, I think, although it's not limited to strict genre styles. The classic, I suppose, is the courts or palaces of history where power and temptation run rife. Shakespeare knew this, see Hamlet or Macbeth. Cities or houses might work in a similar fashion: The city of Verona, the house of Usher - even Wuthering Heights. The uniting feature is a sense of entrapment, of a sort. The characters are confined together and must interact. A court or a household offers a secondary series of hierarchies from whose power-games can be drawn the meta-domestic conflicts that cause tragedy. It could, of course, be a space station, the forbidden city (Curse of the Golden Flower?), a surreal prison-dimension, a fantasy castle, a government office liberated by penned-in revolutionaries, a submarine or a small tenement on the East-side. Anything, so long as there's that focal point or place that compels character action.
Right now this game is mostly thought-experiment, so I hadn't decided on what setting I'd like to play with a group - but let's keep a Warring States-era Imperial Chinese Palace for an example. Other games do the setting more in-depth, but I like the aesthetic. So it's a centralised palace in which the Emperor has summoned his court: made up of family, servants both civil and militaristic, and his trusted regional governors. You can imagine the lavish decadence of this isolated stronghold, passions and ambition smothered beneath silk and incense. But I'm digressing again, really, any setting you like could work - but I just wanted to give an example of how I might do it.

Now, the mechanics: In classic RPG-style, players would invent their protagonist to control throughout. I'm fairly certain that a brief statement about the character describing a little of their history, position, desires and relationships would be sufficient. Just a few minutes to explain the concept, with other players offering support and ideas, then noting down any traits that are central to that vision. These replace what would otherwise be the numerical values of a character's strength or such. If it's important to the concept that the character is strong, say so and note it down. Of Mice and Men's Lennie might be a good example. I'm fairly certain I've read similar concepts in other RPGs, but I remember liking the feel of this style of character generation.
The important bit is to then generate the character's 'Fates'. Events that could befall the character at one point or another.  All characters, without exception, receive the Fates of 'Gravely Injured', 'Madness' and 'Death'. This is not to say that all characters will die, go mad or be injured - they are potential fates that the player must choose when the time comes. The list of Fates, as I see it, is a growing catalog of very nasty seeds that spur-on the game's action. I'll talk more of how they work in a moment.
Other Fates are generated by extrapolation from the character's traits. All the players should help one another weed out these nasties: they are, in effect, the worst betrayals of a trait if positive, or a trait taken to the extreme if negative:

"Wan Yu is one of the the Emperor's most loyal servants as Captain of the Palace Guard. Having seen of countless assassins he is ever-vigilant for the next attack."

The traits the we could draw from these sentences for the character of Wan Yu are:
'Loyal Captain of the Palace Guard'
'Ever-Vigilant'
The Tragic Fates that these traits imply might be:
'Betrayal of Duty' or even 'Betrayal of the Emperor' - I think I like the latter, it implies a plot already half-forming! 'Betrayal of the Emperor's Trust' might be more lenient and focused however.
'Blinding Paranoia'

I haven't considered what limits Traits and Fates might have but I'd imagine around six traits and near-to or just under that number of Fates might be appropriate: the game's action might be mired by great encyclopedic lists.

The action is resolved in a manner which I believe is called 'Conflict Resolution' which settles the outcome of a scene's conflicts in one or two major rolls. So, 'I roll to murder the Emperor' as opposed to 'I roll to swing my sword at the Emperor - how much HP has he got?'
I'm sure you've heard of this, if not actually coined the term!
Ah! Saying that, I've just remembered who and what I'm plagiarising so poorly! I believe it is... (googles)... James West's 'Pool' system. Hm, I suppose this could be a variant of sorts - but at least I'd like to acknowledge my inspirations.
Anyway, now I've remembered the system's unoriginal, I'll be concise: To succeed players roll a minimum of six d6s and must get three-of-a-kind.
Hm, sorry, now I've reminded myself of the Pool I'm just thinking how well it'd fit. The mind at work. Scrap what I was about to say involving player vs GM roll-offs, this'll do:

Three-of-a-kind for successes. Any three gets the player one of West's 'Monologues of Victory' or, if they choose, a narration by the Game Master of their success and a bonus die that can be included once in any roll (theirs or otherwise).
This is where my line of thinking breaks from the Pool: As you can see, rolling Three-of-a-Kind isn't highly likely with just six dice, so additional dice come from two places. Firstly, Traits which are given a numerical value between, I think, perhaps 1 and 4 - the higher rank relating to their importance within the character's concept.
So, if Wan Yu utilized his major trait of 'Loyal Captain of the Palace Guard' [4] in a roll to, say, seek out the Assassins with the palace complex his player would roll 10 dice and look for triples.
Secondly, additional dice come from accepting Fates. This is the crux of the game. Fates have a similar dice-rank to Traits and can be called on to roll in addition taking the pool up past 10. When a fate is accepted and the reward in dice it gives used, whatever it was comes into effect regardless of action success or failure. So if Wan Yu's player, thinking that only ten dice are not enough and in desperate need to find those assassins, accepts the 'Gravely Injured' Fate all player characters have for five additional dice then, in the midst of his search, he gains a dire wound! This could be expressed by a MoV describing how he confronts the Assassin atop the palace roof but is stabbed in an attempt to arrest him!
After a fate is accepted it is struck off the list. Gravely wounded is, perhaps, the lamest of fates. Accepting 'blinding paranoia' irrevocably changes how Wan Yu's player uses the character and means that the motivations and consequent actions undertaken take a shift into left-field. Perhaps while hunting the flitting shadows caused him to have a surreal nervous breakdown? If the GM was giving the narration, or the MoV was undertaken by a player really tuned into the tragic mindset Wan Yu might stab an innocent by accident. Bonus dice rewards aplenty for that I should think.

Fates, I was thinking, start with a number of dice equal to the trait they have been extrapolated from.  'Loyal Captain of the Palace Guard' [4] = 'Betrayal of the Emperor' [4] Grave Injury has 2, Madness 4 and Death 6.
These ranks are increased with each roll. In any pool any additional three-of-a-kinds create a Fate die that may be applied to any Fate. Similarly, any surplus to making that three generate that number of Fate die: If five 4s where rolled, three would count towards the success and the two remainder would be added into the Fates.
This means that, in effect, with each roll the Fates become more and more tempting to use. No player really wishes for his character to go mad or die, but if the reward and the chance of one more success seems tangible enough they just might be willing to risk it! It's Faustian, perhaps. But in the end the players are compelled to enter that spiral towards the grim and glorious finale as the snowball gathers speed as accepted Fates increase the chance of gaining more Fate dice and make the fate too terrible previously all the more tempting

Finally, 'Death' means that the character dies. Regardless of success or failure, GM narration or Player MoV - the character is dead. Their final action may have been a glorious attempt to kill his whorish sister or hold back a vast army on a lonesome mountain pass in distant lands - either way it should be bold, fantastic and, of course, last resort. The GM'll want to try have the players burn Fate at similar rates (given a similar number of challenges/opportunities) and reach that point of 'Only Death Remains' at the same time. With luck the inter-relationships of the characters will drive the car off the edge of the cliff, so to speak. And then, when they've all caught their breaths and looked out over the seeping puddles of blood, you'll blow out the candle and whisper magnificently 'The End'!

Tragic, no?

Whoa! Sorry I rambled for so long! I guess I've never spoken about gaming like this before. Thank you for your indulgence. If you've read all of this - you have my greatest admiration. My thanks also to James West whom I'm sure will be, at least, great irritated with me.
Importantly, what do you think? Could this work? What changes and additions does it need? I'd be grateful for some feedback.

Cheers,
Mike

[M. Burrell]

Sorry to reply to myself, but I was talking to a friend today about the mechanics of a tragedy game as I've suggested here and he commented that the concept of accepting fates to unlock pools of dice isn't necessarily a tragic feature. If you where to invert the fates it'd be simple, he suggests, to make an overblown action-adventure game in the style of Dragon Ball where in each battle when the characters are knocked down they can unlock a fate for that sudden, enlightening boost.

Although, I believe 3:16 has a similar concept.

Then we got to thinking about a Journey into the West campaign where the fates of the players are written in the style of Buddhist mantras and wisdoms that grow as the journey into mythic India continues and the challenges from demons and corrupt heavenly bureaucrats pile up!

I wonder if fates as unlockable dice-pools/bonuses could be placed within atop any game-system as a narrativist element?

As a final point, after much rolling, my friend and I concluded that the highest trait rank should be 3 owing to the probabilities of rolling three-of-a-kind being less for nine in a pool than ten, it would seem. Also that three 1s do not count as success and also add a fate-dice. This should roughly balance the probability, but I'd love to know the exact percentages.

Thanks for your indulgence once again. Apologies if the original post is hard to digest.

Mike.

[Marshall Burns]

I'm not particularly interested in the dice mechanic, myself, but the Fates idea has a lot of potential.
I don't see the dice being necessary at all, in fact.

What you want is for players to willingly accept these unpleasant Fates for their characters, right? And for stuff to happen in the process?

I suggest that each Fate comes with a list of things you can do. For instance, "Death" could have underneath it, "If you accept this Fate, you can either: A) take someone's life, B) save someone's life, C) reveal a terrible secret, or D) inflict crushing guilt on someone."

Just a thought.
-Marshall

[M. Burrell]

I don't see the dice being necessary at all, in fact.
What you want is for players to willingly accept these unpleasant Fates for their characters, right? And for stuff to happen in the process?
I suggest that each Fate comes with a list of things you can do. For instance, "Death" could have underneath it, "If you accept this Fate, you can either: A) take someone's life, B) save someone's life, C) reveal a terrible secret, or D) inflict crushing guilt on someone."

Now that is interesting!

Perhaps it should be the reverse of what you've suggested - "If you wish to take or save somebodies life, reveal a secret or inflict guilt, you must accept 'Death', 'Madness' or 'An Avenger's Punishment' or a suitably appropriate Fate from your character's list.'

So, if a character wishes to succeed at an action, they may, but they must accept a Fate as the consequence for success. Perhaps actions and fates should be correspondingly ranked:

• Minor Actions being relatively simple tasks well within the character capabilities, or those without many repercussions.
  Major Actions being difficult tasks beyond a characters traits, taboo or with obvious impact on the on-going plot.

• Minor Fates are the price paid for minor actions: Wounds, Doubts, Secrets, Obsessions, Oaths.
  Major Fates are the price paid for major actions: Death, Murder, Exposure, Madness, Betrayal.

This would imply that each character starts the game with a list of Fates both Minor and Major that must be ticked off during play while taking actions with, I'd imagine, Death as the last.

Alteratively, Minor Actions cost nothing except the generation of a new Fate to be added to the list. Fates are the price of Major Actions alone, with some dialogue going on between players as to whether the fate-cost is worth the gain the character would recieve.

Or, the game is split into two halves and both Major and Minor Actions only generate Fates in the first half but in the second Actions cost them.

Either way it becomes clear that characters must have a series of 'Desires' or other motivation to compel them into taking any action at all. Potentially a character might have 'Become King of this Land' as his desire/ultimate-goal but with a series of secondry concerns such as the love of the King's loyal daughter and being charged by his majesty to protect the land from foreign invaders.

Perhaps the rank of actions and the fates they incur could be ordered as so:

• Actions done for Others
  Actions done for your King
  Actions done for your Lover
  Actions done for Yourself

So going out by the request of your leige is only so perilous, but undertaking a selfish deed will cost you a great deal of fated pain.

Hmm, diceless tragedy.
Thanks,
Mike.

[Marshall Burns]

Alteratively, Minor Actions cost nothing except the generation of a new Fate to be added to the list. Fates are the price of Major Actions alone, with some dialogue going on between players as to whether the fate-cost is worth the gain the character would recieve.

Or, the game is split into two halves and both Major and Minor Actions only generate Fates in the first half but in the second Actions cost them.


I like both of these ideas. I can't decide which one I like more.
They're both very Hamlet and Oedipus Rex.

[noahtrammell]

  Also, you could have character overlap.  For example, if Hamlet's Fate is to "Have your true love go mad and commit suicide," then a player controlling Ophelia would do everything in her power to prevent situations where Hamlet would get closer to fulfilling his Fate, even if it meant using a few of her Fates.
  You could have two-act games, too, like Oedipus Rex.  In the first act, we'd have all the stuff Oedipus did, like beating the Sphynx, killing his father, etc.  In the next act, all the other players except the Primary ones (i.e. Oedipus and his mother) would create new characters (Like the prophet who warns Oedipus of his doom) and play out the last horrible act.  The problem, of course, would be the risk of railroading the game, but I guess the point of tragedy is that everyone knows how it will end, it's all about getting to that end in an interesting way.

[M. Burrell]

very Hamlet and Oedipus Rex.

The problem, of course, would be the risk of railroading the game, but I guess the point of tragedy is that everyone knows how it will end, it's all about getting to that end in an interesting way.

I'm definately striving for that thatrical feel to the proceedings. I may try and split play into acts, use a chorus, have props - perhaps even giving bonuses for using a 'theme' (such as Sight & Blindness in Oedipus or Fathers & Sons in Hamlet).

Regarding railroading and effecting other characters with Fates:

It strikes me that all player-characters in this game must desire something, they must be the central protagonists and antagonists.
To force another player to be your 'Ophelia' would severely limit what the character could be and do - her player would spend the whole time bargaining and focusing on you, Hamlet's player, and not realising Ophelia's own character. Similarly to play Oedipus' father, Laius, in a game constrained by prophesy would be to march towards one's doom (or attempt to avoid it) without much real input as a player. Many Tragic characters are NPCs. NPCs with complex relationship charts, but NPCs nevertheless.

The game would be far more dynamic and competitive if each player was a tragic hero (or villain) who begins play with a series of traits, broad Fates and desires or motivations. If we use Hamlet for example, the player-characters are:

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - whose initial motivation is to Avenge his Father (we can imagine the opening scene of the game is the meeting with the Ghost who explains the character's relationships et al).
  Claudius, King of Denmark - whose initial motivation is Retain the Throne of Demark (the GM has handily invented a war to challenge this in the start but a successful diplomacy roll ends all that)
  Polonius, Chief Counsellor - whose initial motivation is Stability of State and Home
  Laertes - whose initial motivation is a Brother's Love for Ophelia (perhaps we have some scenes of Laertes in Paris, wrestling with his father's wishes and his own misgivings?)

Each player has his own ands and must work with and against the others towards that goal. Fates, to this end, leave a characters ultimate end as a broad stroke that can be filled out in the finale through player input and dialogue rather than a set-in-stone absolute conclusion.
In effect, I'd prefer to have each character have 'Death' at the bottom of his or her sheet rather than 'You Die at the Hands of Your Beloved on the Seventh Stroke of Midnight' – a character's death may very well be just that, but I'd rather leave that to them.

[JoyWriter]

That last bit reminds me of one of my conflict resolution systems; if you try to do something to someone else, it can come back on you if you fail, which means that you can make it a life or death fight, or merely try to incapacitate them. Once everyone knows the stakes they can split their effort between succeeding at their own task or defending against another.

The way the system is supposed to produce tragic consequences is by encouraging pride before a fall in how conflicts are set up, so that people may succeed at a certain task many times, only to be killed ironically (or deceived, or over-awed, or disgraced) because they finally failed that roll.

But setting that up will take a while, as it is supposed to be an emergent feature of the system and semi-hidden from view, to better increase the impact when failure occurs.

So looking at your system, I immediately want to jump on the problem that I have had: How to make player v player conflicts interesting?

If you go diceless, then it would probably be good to make sure that it is hinted what fates people can take, so that people can understand what conflicts they should get into. This is the equivalent in character terms of saying "That young man will meet a fiery end one day, don't be about him when he catches" which in game terms could be a trait relating to his temper and what causes it, allowing players to imagine the possible fates that can hang off that trait.

When they actually go into conflict, then the players could either call on existing fates or make a new one for an unmarked trait, and then rank the fates for either appropriateness or power, and put them on little slips of paper, with the fate that is most unstoppable at the top. I suspect there is a mine of interesting things you can do with such a list, like using them to time when fates occur, or pacing scenes, or allowing players with their characters fates at the bottom to shape other characters fates, all kinds of things.

[M. Burrell]

I think ironic deaths or foreshadowing of any sort is the kind of thing that should be beyond the remit of the system. In effect, it's colour that the player's retroactively insert when the tragic narrative tells an interesting story - not mechanics - invented by discussion, suggestion and an eye for fitting visuals and actions. For example, instead of having 'Fiery Death' as a trait, it'd be more entertain that, when death came up, if the player's character had an association with fire in language or action, that he be free to invent and describe an horrifically fitting death-by-immolation. More fun, and it doesn't impose limited expectations (railroadings) on the players.

Joy, I think this is what you where getting at - or at least your comment drew me to that conclusion. I hadn't deeply considered conflict-stakes and would love to hear an expanded explaination.

With dice Player Vs. Player conflicts are merely a roll-off, for narrative rights to the victor. With karmic Fates for resolution one cannot simply expend fates for success as, we've suggested, in other conflicts are a bidding-war begins with both players accepting multiple Fates in a single conflict in an attempt to be the victor. I think this competitive bidding could, perhaps, be utilised into a formal game mechanic – but how!?
Think, think, think.

[JoyWriter]

Well I put a thread up related to my system before, but I suspect my description of how it worked was so brief as to be useless to anyone but me!

So to make it a little clearer, when a scene reaches a point of disagreement, the two sides suggest their means and ends (so influenced by marshal on that one), and the result of a failure should be a frustration of their objective, by the application of their means to themselves. So if people do something by intimidation, then failure includes their own intimidation. The difficulty of the check each player makes is dependent on the amount they invest in stopping the other player(s), although this is something that needs serious work at the mo: Basically everyone keeps adding dice to the conflict by gaining fatigue, and this increases the number of dice people have to roll under their stat with. It's got no internal balance and I want to do some playtesting to see if balance can be added in actual play by player investment in what their characters are disagreeing on.

Basically I have to build the rest of the game concept before I can test that, unless I can pull out the core about what makes people invested in the characters own objectives that they will find it a hard choice to risk sacrificing them.

But back on the system's relevance to you, the idea is that the way the character treats the world comes back on them. This is a specific form of tragedy, more closely associated with poetic justice than "the fatal error" or "envy of the gods" or "idealism vs reality" or some of the other tragic themes. It's meant to act as an element in a game that can go multiple ways, so characters who are a bit more Kant-ish in their behaviour should get off pretty light, although the setting and the stat systems influence on actions possible should push them back towards tragic-arrogance-way a little. To make the characters tragic rather than just people getting their comeuppance they really need to be sympathetic, so one of my ideas is to play off the bizarre discrepancy that sometimes happens in rpgs between the objectives of characters and what the system allows them to do well. Not too heavily mind, just a little.

What this system doesn't do so well is "it'll come back to haunt you" or any other fate/doom type story telling. That's not really what it's designed for; consequences are immediate and dependent on intent. But with this game you might be able to push that angle forwards, if you want to, because of the way you have suggested recording fates.

[Marshall Burns]

As far as Player vs. Player conflicts, here's an idea.

If it's a Major Action, i.e. the player accepted a Fate to do it, it can't be blocked except by accepting the same Fate. Other than that, the closest you can get is the threat of vengeance and retribution.

[M. Burrell]

Joy, thank-you for your continued comments. My apologies for not getting back to you sooner.

After reading your stake thread I begin to see more clearly what you mean. However you yourself suggest a major problem: the immediacy of retribution for failure. It's pure poetic justice, as you rightly point out, which is slightly divorced from the concept of a fated, Tragic tale wherein the characters often have their (sometimes) fitting ends dealt them in the final scenes. Immediacy buckles the essential structure of the tragedy and the feel of the game falls to bits as protagonists and villains fall like flies before the issues are wound up!

It also strikes me that intention-dependant retribution disallows the 'Tragic Error' which is another characteristic of the genre - but that's an easy fix. Plus, I'd argue vehemently that a character needs not to be sympathetic to be tragic, but that's far too literary for today.

The other problem with immediate retribution for failure is that it, consciously or not, pushes the players toward taking only 'safe' actions. Combat becomes just about wounding and social interaction about mildly embarrassing - it becomes a game of petty triumphs. All risks are not proportionate, firstly, and while it seems that players might undertake these endeavours regardless of the obvious returns it occurs to me that the death of your character just to kill a single enemy is too high of a price.
Perhaps this is your intention? Either way, these are just my thoughts on the issue. A fix might be to give the players a pool of tokens that can be spent to lessen the cost of failure (Death > Wound > Stun > Block)  - a low pool indicates character fatigue.

Thanks for your help, I look forward to many discussions on tragic gaming.
Mike.

[JoyWriter]

Well they aren't supposed to fall like flies! I'm sort of hoping that stats will be on my side given the large number of dice; if you keep gambling and winning, and the risk of terrible loss is low, then slowly that risk can seem to fade into the background, without actually going away, as occurred in the financial crisis. So it's like a trick on players, because although it's "there", it just gets discounted as they get a feel for how their character behaves, only to come back suddenly with a vengeance!

But that's like waiting for an earthquake, so I totally understand the criticism, we don't structure our leisure time around possible earthquakes!

So flipping that criticism around, how could you insure that in your game there is a "master clock", so that events reach their conclusion in a coordinated manner?

There is the challenge there of multi-person tragedy; tragic frequently focus on a single subject, and it takes a lot of skill to make them all go down at once in a way that feels right. That's sort of why I gave up on a strict act structure, that and because I heard this beautiful jazz composition once where the resolutions of different parts are staged but interlocking, so one piece gets the chance to partially resolve it's melody and then really lightly continues playing to compliment other parts as they resolve too. Really beautiful. In game terms this would mean that one person's fall is both given space to be it's own end, but also plays a part in the last characters fall, perhaps via the player now playing out it's consequences as an agent of the other players fall, with more and more players acting as like the GM. Getting that to work is at least as hard as the first one, but it suites me more!

But if you want the act structure, then I suspect that the doom will turn into a group failing, so that one person's fate twists up with another's, leading to some broader concept or event that you didn't initially consider. That could be pretty interesting too!

[M. Burrell]

Jazz is beautiful, elegant and emotive - but only if played by musician with real skill. Those unsure of what they're doing or the effect they want to achieve often blast randomly or create the wrong emotions in the listener. To turn our protracted analogy back to gaming, it strikes me that leaving things like structure and timing to chance frustrates the purpose of our tragic intentions. While I agree that each end must work in harmony with the others, the best way to achieve this is through a maestro's baton - to organise and focus the group - rather than hope each solo-artiste picks up on the other's subtle melodies or, like an earthquake, chance draws the tempo together.
[/metaphor]

The maestro's baton , as it were, is not the GM, but the mechanics of an act-structured game. If, in the first act only Minor Fates can be expended, then the tragic element cannot be pushed to the most dramatic conclusion and the players can focus of developing character relationships and advancing their goals rather than worry that the next scene is going to be their 'big one'. When everything has been satisfied (all the characters are set up and the situation ready to boil over), then the Act is changed and Major Fates can be unleashed.

It might be clumsy or heavy-handed, but I think this could lead to thematic play without random chance dictating. It's bloody and operatic, but I think this is the way towards your Jazz-harmony.

Mike.

P.S On a less lyrical note, I like the idea of players who are 'out' acting in a GM roll,  being able to push events or voice other characters. Ghostly apparitions too?

[noahtrammell]

  I certainly agree with the idea that the mechanics should always be helping a character tell a story.  I know people have the sacred cow of RPG's being extremely freeform, but each and every RPG is designed to tell a certain story.  With D&D the mechanics lend themselves to a tale of killing monsters.  When you're writing a game called Tragedy, a Game of Glory and Death, I would certainly not be afraid to be heavy-handed with the mechanics.  Players who buy the game will be wanting to tell tragic stories that ultimately end in death.
  It's OK to be heavy-handed as long as the players are fine with it, too.