After I finish my present series of threads on Call of Cthulhu, The next hobbyhorse I intend to ride is the subject of character mortality. Is it really necessary? Trollbabe has a rule that a character can't be killed without permission and I wonder how (if at all) this changes play , whether from the standpoint of GM or player. Does it help resolve issues such as 'my guy' behaviour? Does it allow the player to take creative risks they otherwise wouldn't? Enquiring minds want to know.....

I have not played Trollbabe, so I can't speak to that game specifically. However, my game Legends of Alyria has a similar rule, and it is my experience that it allows (at least) two effects:

1) It does free players to take certain creative risks. Character death usually equals loss of play time (for lack of a better term). The player has to sit out for a certain time period and also loses the character Effectiveness that has been earned as a result of invested play time. Since this disincentive is removed, the players tend to feel free to fail at actions. They may not care for the results, but their invested play time is safe.

2) It emphasizes the effect of a character's death. If I (the player) choose to have my character die, I am saying "Hey! It's important that my character dies now!"

I'm out of time, so I can't develop these thoughts further. Hopefully they will assist in the developing conversation.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

"No character death" was one of the first items on the social contract for my groups current TROS campaign. We have done it in a number of games before as well.

The biggest benefit is that it allows the player to actually play the character. The caveat is that a character can die, but only when the player agrees to it (and you would be surprised how reasonable most players are about it, many take it as a point of pride because their character died in a horoic, meaningful or cool way). What the no death thing does do, is let them get on with roleplaying and doing neat things without having to worry that one poor roll means they'll fall off the roof and die, or that a single botched roll in combat can spell curtains (which is otherwise always a possibility in TROS) etc. Because they know they can't die from a poor roll or poor decision, it frees them up to make decisions baced on what they actually want to do, and not what's safest. Everyone wins.

Brian.

I'm going to post an opposing experience to the "no character death" option: this was an implicit understanding during my D&D campaigns early on. Unfortunately, it had very frustrating and eventually game-destroying results.

Why? D&D being what it is meant that players with characters who can not die will behave in ways not suitable to the game being played. As an example, I had players talking back to ancient, evil dragons because they knew (or guessed strongly) that the DM would not kill their characters, though by all rights, that is exactly and precisely what should have occurred (evil dragons being what they are).

These events led to my explicit revocation of that right when we attempted to resume the game a year or so later, and also lost me a few players (and notably the worst offenders of previous campaigns). Regardless, I run a strongly Narrativist campaign, though it competes with Gamism at times due to the system and the mood of the evening.

However, this isn't a dig at any game's removal of the shackles of character death. Rather, it led to a better understading of the dynamics of game systems and actual-at-the-table-play events: if character death is going to be removed from play, except at the player's option, players need something of equal value to gain or lose in place of their character's life, and the system must support this as the point of play.

Trollbabe, for example, does this via the Stakes, which are not even a matter of winning-or-losing, but rather play hinges on the outcome thereof and its effects. One might say that the results of the Stakes are what the players are most interested in, and those results according with group desire to achieve a compelling or interesting narrative, are what is gained or lost.

The interesting part there is that the GM is not the opposition in such a case, as he is in D&D where it is explicit that he is the force behind the player's loss of character and thus their in-game priority, but in this case is an associate to achieving the same goal. The group, by working together, either wins or loses...either achieves or fails to achieve that narrative.

What I am now wondering is if unwanted character death is exclusive to a game's priority, overshadowing or diluting it, or if it can reasonably share the spotlight with other priorities?

Hello,

One of the features of the potential death of the character in Trollbabe, is to consider the alternative. It's a pretty specific instance of the rules, it's not just any ol' time during play. The choice only appears when the character is already established to be incapacitated, and the GM wins the final re-roll over who gets to narrate the end of the conflict.

If the player chooses to have her live, he or she is also empowering the GM to dictate the circumstances of the character, in full. What happens to her in this scene, how she gets to the next scene, and what's happening to her there - all suddenly, fully, in the hands of the GM.

That's actually a pretty serious choice. Although the role of the GM is not especially adversarial toward the player, that role is extremely adversity-oriented toward the character. I have employed this rule in several ways: at a light, fun con game, the character woke up in chains in a temple; in other, grimmer (more majestic?) games, the range of badness that might happen to the characters in particular scenes that would horrify you. Way bad, especially because the character would live. Don't ask.

In these circumstances, the player may choose character death in preference to the possibility of "a fate worse than."

So I think the Trollbabe rules are a bit different from those in (say) Prince Valiant or Castle Falkenstein, which are the first games I remember with explicit "no character death" rules.

Best,
Ron

b_bankhead wrote: ...character mortality. Is it really necessary?

greyorm wrote: As an example, I had players talking back to ancient, evil dragons because they knew (or guessed strongly) that the DM would not kill their characters, though by all rights, that is exactly and precisely what should have occurred (evil dragons being what they are).

greyorm wrote: Why? D&D being what it is meant that players with characters who can not die will behave in ways not suitable to the game being played. As an example, I had players talking back to ancient, evil dragons because they knew (or guessed strongly) that the DM would not kill their characters, though by all rights, that is exactly and precisely what should have occurred (evil dragons being what they are).
...
What I am now wondering is if unwanted character death is exclusive to a game's priority, overshadowing or diluting it, or if it can reasonably share the spotlight with other priorities?

Careful, Andrew, Raven has lots of emotional scars from this instance of play. Do a Forge search on "red dragon" with him specified as author for some threads. We're talking pain.*

So, uh, Raven, if you could hold off from recounting the details of that particular event, maybe get a backrub or something, that'd be good.

This discussion has become abstract, and there are many good discussions about character death at the Forge, mainly in RPG theory. To keep this one from merely recapitulating the stages of those earlier discussions, let's focus on the Trollbabe issue.

Brian, you've played Trollbabe, right? Andrew too?

What??

Ah geez. Well, check out my earlier post, everyone, and tell me what you think about its particular features and issues.

Best,
Ron

* Found it! Stupid player tricks - great discussion, but holeeee shit.

First, I apologise to Raven. I didn't intend to open any emotional scars. Please forgive me.

Ron Edwards wrote: So I think the Trollbabe rules are a bit different from those in (say) Prince Valiant or Castle Falkenstein, which are the first games I remember with explicit "no character death" rules.

Ron Edwards wrote:
In these circumstances, the player may choose character death in preference to the possibility of "a fate worse than."

Hi there,

Hey Andrew, I was kidding about the scarring - I'm sure Raven laughed at my post (um, right, Rave ol' buddy?).

Those are some good points about the kind of role-playing that's most widely taught and expressed through texts. You might be interested to know that The Riddle of Steel has a rule very much like Bushido's, but the rule in TROS is far more "toothy" - it sets up for extremely enjoyable character death in a way that's (surprisingly) more like Trollbabe than anything else.

Wilhelm (rafial), I agree with you. That is a very good point, especially the comparison with Dust Devils. One thing I was trying to get at with the game design for Trollbabe came from my observations of first-time female role-players, many of whom were sitting in after months of pleading from boyfriends. Inevitably, they would whiff a roll in the first scene, and the GM would (especially back in the 80s) enjoy showing how the rules elaborately hosed the character.

As he more and more enthusiastically described the fumble in the in-game-world, and the subsequent goony incompetence being now embedded in the character concept, I could see the woman's face getting stonier and stonier, and even sort-of-hear the "snap" of her decision that she'd tried this RPG thing, and come to her conclusion about it. And this was a repeated phenomenon.

The same thing would happen with new male players, but usually these guys were so desperate to be accepted by anyone, for any social purpose, that they embraced the imaginative "my guy is a dork" events without protest. The women players (or almost-players, rather) tended very much not to do this, and quite understandably, (a) generated various excuses not to continue playing and (b) applied the famous vaginal pressure technique to lead the boyfriend, eventually, to do (a) as well.

Leaving behind, of course, a group full of guys with no girlfriends who desperately wanted to be accepted by someone, anyone, for any social activity at all. This would be the classic Rolemaster or GURPS situation.

[Alternate result: the group cancels out "the system" (by which they mean, whiffs and meaninglessly extreme outcomes from simply get-it-done moments of play) and goes to the System Doesn't Matter fire, from their frying pan.]

Anyway, I'm starting to get carried away about the large-scale implications of this simple game/people/rules relationship, but I'll rope myself back to Trollbabe. As you point out, the extremity of the possible outcome on the trollbabe herself is directly proportional to the character's investment in the outcome going her way. I built the game so that the opposite is not the case: you don't have to accept risk simply in order to try to do something important; after all, you may succeed right off the top. But if you don't, then the risk factor kicks in if you want to keep trying. The point that, at least in the first two or three rolls, the system includes a graceful exit ("OK, I lose") from the conflict, is related to this same idea.

It's risk-assessment, but it's not a Gamist's game, because you could, conceivably, simply succeed your way through a scenario and come out smelling like roses. This in fact did happen in one (1) game I've played. That lack of necessary risk in order to achieve exactly what you (and your character, if you're all Actor Stancey) want, yet with substantial risk arising a certain percent of the time (and subject to modulation through player choice), is what I was after.

Best,
Ron

Andrew Martin wrote: First, I apologise to Raven. I didn't intend to open any emotional scars. Please forgive me.

This post begins a bit off topic, but tries to find its way by the end...

Ron Edwards wrote: Inevitably, they would whiff a roll in the first scene, and the GM would (especially back in the 80s) enjoy showing how the rules elaborately hosed the character.

From: ---
Date: Sat Nov 15, 2003 3:08 pm
Subject: Sharing fun moments

My group is walking down a path doing nothing special, and I'm rolling my
dice as sort of a nervous habit. I roll a critical failure, and I say "Thank
god I'm not doing anything at the moment and that didn't count."

The GM responds "You fall flat on your face and break your nose."

I critically failed my walking roll. Now that's sad.

It's risk-assessment, but it's not a Gamist's game, because you could, conceivably, simply succeed your way through a scenario and come out smelling like roses.

Actually I haven't but I intend to try running it online as I am working on a variant ( my oft metioned 'Cthulhubabe") anbody running it right now? I'd like to see the game from the standpoint of a player)

Hiya,

Wilhelm - actually, I'd like to keep the discussion here focused on Trollbabe, not "character death."

Your point about Gamism is good - but remember, you're talking to the guy who invented the concept that Narrativist and Gamist play are often interchangeable at the Techniques level. And more generally, of course you "can" play Trollbabe Gamist; you can play anything Gamist.

I'd like to clarify a couple of points about that.

1. Husbanding points or other resources in order to utilize them fully on future events is not an ipso facto Gamist behavior. A lot of people say that, wrongly. It's just resource management, period. In my model, it'd be in the Ephemera category.

2. When I say Trollbabe is not a Gamist game, what I'm saying is not, "You can't play it Gamist," but rather, it doesn't facilitate Gamist behavior as well as it could."

If I had wanted it to do so, then every roll in Trollbabe would entail risk of some sort beyond that of "failure." Incapacitation carries no "punishment" mechanical effect - that's what I'm talking about.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote:
1. Husbanding points or other resources in order to utilize them fully on future events is not an ipso facto Gamist behavior. A lot of people say that, wrongly. It's just resource management, period. In my model, it'd be in the Ephemera category.