thread: 2005-03-10 : Character Death
On 2005-03-10, Olman Feelyus wrote:
This is a very interesting discussion (and a very interesting blog).
Perhaps a greater emphasis in the game structure on setting and situation may bring down the player's attachment to their characters, making death an acceptable (and enjoyable) part of the game. So the player who died gets to return immediately as a different character (who may or may not have already existed as an NPC in the situation), but one who is still connected to the events. The character experiences them from a significantly different perspective, while the player still has all the meta-knowledge from his previous character. Those elements could interact in a way that would bring out the next chapter in the story in a rich and interesting way.
For example, the setting is some sort of courtly intrigue. You play the prince whose elderly father is slowly losing his grip on the kingdom. There is a plan to murder the king. You become involved and end up getting killed. Now you take a new character, maybe the king himself, one of the plotters or the sergeant-at-arms who is supposed to protect the king, etc. Now the story carries on from your new perspective.
Or, perhaps you play the story back from the beginning, but as this new character and now with your knowledge of what happened before, you change what happened... I don't know, thinking kind of far afield now. But my main point is that emphasising the growth of the story over the growth of a single character may be a way to address character death.
(conanp@gmail.com)
