thread: 2005-03-10 : Character Death
On 2005-03-10, Piers wrote:
Both Jonathan Walton's Argonauts and an old design of mine did something interesting in the context of this question by tying character death to a Fate or Doom. What they essentially had was a switch with two states—Doomed to Die, and Sure to Live—and a rachet-like mechanic (easy to move forward, difficult or impossible to move back) that controlled when the character switched from one state to the other.
What's interesting about this is that is breaks out some (but by no means all) of the questions that ball up around the issue of character death and allows you to address them separately:
—What's at stake for me when I know that my character is sure to live? (What's as bad as dying? What am I not afraid of if I can't die?)
—What's at stake for me when I know my character is going to die? (What will I do to make my death meaningful? How will I act if I know my death has no meaning?)
and
—What's at stake around moving between these states of knowledge? (How sure do have to be that I can't die? What am I willing to risk death for? What will I do to escape death?)
