This episode Erik Woodbury and I are talking about character death and how that affects the players in the game and the story ramifications. This was inspired by an article from Judd Karlman on the Burning Wheel forums.
Hosts: Sean Nittner and Erik Woodbury
Length: 27:15
Show Notes
[00:27] Intro to the Show. My celebration of holiday cheer. Our thoughts on how to make Character death more satisfying in game.
[01:44] Whats up Justin? I mean an intro to Erik Woodbury.
[02:38] Judds post. A discussion took place on both his LiveJournal here: http://judd-sonofbert.livejournal.com/462520.html and the Burning Wheel forum thread here: http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?p=76980#post76980
[03:00] An excerpt from Judds post.
[03:55] Putting Erik on the spot. Characters of his that have died.
[04:44] What character death means to Sean? The end of player agency in the story.
[05:11] Agency is the ultimate currency in any RPG. Doing stuff is what makes it fun.
[05:35] Erik recalls his characters death
[07:00] An unfinished story is incredibly frustrating
[07:11] The crap death a meaningless, unexpected, and one that doesnt advance the story.
[07:50] What about games where death isnt permanent? Resurrection, Cloning, etc. Satisfying in games that address it in the fiction. In other games though, Death becomes cheap.
[09:45] Were not advocating pulling punches though. Death is a powerful effect on the game.
[10:01] The crap death though leaves a player feeling cheated. Roll or die situations are way to binary. Worse the confrontation is meaningless.
[10:40] Seans mini rant on PCs that rush headlong into violence in games where death is very setting appropriate.
[12:33] For the death to be satisfying, its got to be meaningful to the players. The good death. My death meant something.
[13:10] A TPK minus one. Awesome Deaths where everyone sacrificed themselves to make something happen that was needed in the story.
[14:50] Dying and feeling like you achieved something that doesnt make you lose agency. Something changed specifically BECAUSE your character died.
[16:00] What to do after death? Balancing a new character. Re-integrating with the existing group.
[17:57] Characters die and then sometimes players will keep trying to tell their story. Gaming after death? OOTS (http://www.giantitp.com/) does it, but does it work in an RPG?
[19:35] Find a way to wrap up the characters story. Allow for player narration and story crafting. Man we like the word agency.
[21:04] Song of Ice and Fire books, the last three (of four books) are all about a single characters death.
[21:38] Total Party Kills (TPK). This can be awesome, but most of the time it means there has been a breakdown in communication.
[24:02] A mis-designed encounter on the GMs part. When challenging becomes overwhelming. This is largely affected by system.
[25:07] How does character death vary in one-shot games vs. campaign games?
Direct download: NC_Episode_040.mp3
Great episode, as usual. One thing I thought of, though, with regard to unfinished stories and character death - many games, like Burning Wheel or Dogs in the Vineyard, are designed with the intention that you don't know what the story you're telling is until after you look back on it. If you go into a game with a story to tell in mind, then, yeah, the death of a character is a big disappointment, but in many cases, the death of a character is a natural ending to the story, regardless of whether or not it was expected.
I have found that in games where the dice have conspired to one of my NPC's kill a PC, usually not a great thing, its best to let them narrate their own death and then make slight changes to the story that takes that into account. So that even though they may not have wanted the character they invested so much in dying in that way they at least can walk away feeling like their death helped the party if not the story.
Doing it on your own terms is huge. It may be the character's last chance to say or do something the player has been hoping to bring into the game. Good call sherwoodm.
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