Point for discussion....

[avevale_intelligencer]

I have a problem with roleplaying, and it is this: I roleplay.

The object of roleplaying is to create a character different from oneself, and I have had some success at doing this. At the same time, I’m somewhat limited by my own nature, and there are some kinds of character I cannot, or will not, play. For instance, I’ll never play an evil character. I rolled one up once, but he was too messed up to be fun to play either for others or myself. Also, I’m a devil for consistency, in my own limited way.

Example. I started a bard character back in the days of Advanced D&D first edition. For those who aren’t familiar with that system, a bard had to start out as a fighter, get to sixth level or thereabouts and then start again as a first level thief. Once he got to the same level as a thief, he was at last allowed to start yet again as a first level bard. (One DM interpreted this to mean that till he got to actual bard level he wasn’t even allowed to have a reasonable singing voice…) If you wanted to be a bard in those days, you had to be determined and careful. So my bard character rapidly became an obsessive paranoid. He always ended up de facto leader of any party, not because he wanted to be, but because he couldn’t trust anyone else not to land the party in trouble. He hated magic, he hated undead, he wasn’t really keen on adventuring but he did it because he had to. He got as far as first level thief before we moved and I stopped dungeoning regularly, but he stopped being fun to play long before that…but that was how he had to be. I couldn’t see any other way he could logically have developed.

Anyway, now I am trying out this new roleplaying environment (EVE Online), in which character death is apparently quite frequent, but not a problem because you have a clone in storage somewhere, which gets activated upon your demise. True, it doesn’t necessarily have all your abilities, and your ship (which is almost certainly the most important and expensive possession you have) is gone, but at least you’re alive to start all over again from the bottom. Other players I know have died many many times, and are quite laid-back about this, and they feel the character would be the same.

I totally and flatly disagree. This may be my limited outlook showing through again, but I do not believe that a sane human being would ever become laid-back about dying. It’s a traumatic and painful experience, whose roots go right down to the animal core of our being, and no amount of intellectual knowledge about clones and such will make it any less terrifying a prospect. After all, while the new clone may believe itself to be the same person, there is no transfer of consciousness (as far as I know) so for the one dying death is just as final as it will be for any of us out here.

To me, you see, the character should not know s/he’s a character. Their lives are real to them, and that is how they have to be played. When they’re trapped in their lifepod, seeing the missile coming that will blow them into frozen globs of organic gunk floating in space, they won’t be thinking “that’s all right, I’ll be back in a minute or two, swear for a couple of minutes and carry on.” They will be thinking “I AM GOING TO DIE!” And this rational fear of death will have an effect on how the character develops. Anything else is either a mark of insanity, or of inconsistent roleplaying.

This attitude of mine, of course, means I don’t enjoy roleplaying nearly as much as others with whom I’ve played. The character I’m playing now has run halfway across the galaxy because he made a stupid mistake and endangered his own life and that of another character. The other character’s player cannot understand why I’m playing it this way, why my bloke can’t just laugh it off and carry on as normal. I can’t see how a sane human being, which is what I’m playing, could react any other way.

So: what do you think? How do you play your characters? How do you feel when they die? How do they feel when they think they’re going to die? Does it matter?

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I feel strongly enough about character death that I won't play games in which the GM is willing to kill off characters randomly through the luck of the dice. My character is my contribution to a group story. Sometimes it is best for the story for characters in it to die, but it should, like in any story, make dramatically satisfying sense when they do. I'm known (and teased often) about voluntarily doing really evil things to my characters' lives, including killing them off on purpose in dramatic fashions, but I don't want it done without my participation in the storywriting process, or in a way which doesn't give me anything fun out of it. And my character reacts, when death approaches, as if they have only one life and it's going to go away now. Sometimes that means terror, sometimes it means a blaze of radiant determination and self-sacrifice, sometimes it means the sweet anticipation of heaven, sometimes it means sunken apathy when everything else is gone anyway, sometimes they're too busy thinking about the job they're doing and before they can spot what's coming, they're gone. Depends on the situation and the character.

That doesn't mean I expect the GM to give me leeway to do any damnfool thing I want and still have my character live through it. As a GM myself, I usually serve notice at the beginning of a campaign that I will kill off PCs under two conditions: the player's desire, or persistent gross stupidity in the face of warning. I try hard to craft my statements about the situation so that players (and preferably also characters) will grasp when a course of action is suicidal and stay away from it; when all else fails I have been known to say flatly, "You can try that if you want but I honestly do not see a realistic way to have your character survive the experience."

From the player's end, sometimes those warnings give me a dilemma. There are characters I've played who, even if *I* don't especially want them killed, would not be smart enough or cautious enough to stay out of the clearly suicidal situations. Usually if I'm desperate to keep the character I'll ask the GM's help in figuring out an excuse, but otherwise I'll just say, "He's going in anyway. Yeah, I know, I know. If you kill him on this one I won't kick about it." Then it's up to the GM.

The flip side is also often true -- a character of mine is more cautious, being sensibly careful of their skin and not being aware that there is a GM who is looking out for their survival if they're even plausibly rational, than is convenient for me in the quest to get them involved in a juicy and entertaining adventure. Again, I usually ask the GM for help "baiting the trap," finding some reason why my character would want or need to go in despite caution, or would not see it as quite as dangerous as it is.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, I've not had that many characters who approached death with a radiant glow of self-sacrifice, but apart from that I agree utterly. Mine go into adventures because (for whatever reason) that's what they have to do.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Mostly, so do mine. I've had a couple of weirdos, though. :)

[cleverthylacine]

You know, I don't play in games like that either, mostly because there is no point in developing a character if they're not going to survive more than a few episodes. I don't understand quite why games like that are fun--unless it's PARANOIA, which isn't serious, or Call of Cthulhu, where survival IS victory.

[hrrunka]

Quite a few of those are reasons I've not played in a sustained role-play campaign for quite a while. Somehow I always end up playing a character very like myself anyway, and if my character gets killed I tend to take it personally...

Those old AD&D rules for Bards left me wondering how anyone ever got to be a Bard. I don't think I ever managed to get a character above fifth level.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

It has to matter. Death has to matter. Otherwise nothing does.

Most of mine were stuck at or under fifth when we moved. None of them have got any further since...

[callylevy.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree with you and Naomi. I feel that for meaningful roleplay (and, generally, for a more intense and thought-provoking experience) death has to matter.

Mind you, I do take more risks with a character than I would if it were, say, me, because we're telling a story and it can be hard to do that if every time danger reared its ugly head, I went home and shut the curtains. But I still try to be true and consistent with the character.

As an aside, I have occasionally played a character for whom death is a particular issue - for example, some years back I played a fixer (in Cyberpunk) who was dying, and took pills for the pain. This affected her nature, priorities, how she interacted with other people, etc - and without her ever telling the other characters. It was none of their business. I still value her very highly.

[demoneyes.livejournal.com]

I think you're right insofar as memory recording and clones would not erase the fear of death - for numerous examples see the stories of John Varley.

As far as Eve goes, the simple truth is that at least 90% of players aren't roleplaying, they're just playing a space game. (This subject came up today in a discussion on the games group at work about playing female characters in MMORPGs and I noted that many people habitually refer to characters by the sex of the player, not that of the character - which just seems so wrong to me!). And maybe 90% of those who do roleplay do so on a highly simplistic basis i.e. they don't get much beyond "I'm a pirate - bha-ha-ha" or "I'm a Minmatar - die Amarr slaver scum!".

All of which said, I'm not convinced you'd find a significantly better ratio of geniune roleplayers in most other MMORPGs.

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

Okay - incoming 2p-worth !!

As Zander knows, most of my rp characters ended up mentally b*ggered (and, frankly, given what tends to be down dem dungeons, I wouldn't reallt expect much else. I (or they) came across a Fremen paladin once -- glow-in-the-dark Lawful Good, who kept checking the *party* for thieves -- and I'd rather have had Zander playing the Lich-Lord of Ultimate Evil.

One of my "longer-standing" PCs once decided, as the party were facing a demon, which her magic sword didn't seem to be hitting, she would suicide to distract it, to give the rest time to get out of the way and/or work some way out to dispose of it (killer DM -- never happy till he'd killed someone, but this time we forgot to pack the sacrificial 1st level halfling).
So, having watched her get chewed up, I went for a walk, so that I didn't interfere with the rest of the session. Came back and found they'd forcibly had her resurrected. After that, she became very strange -- half the time she needed physical encouragement to go into battle (mostly supplied by her sister), the other half she blithely did Extreme Things (like riding 2 hours there and 2 back across unknown terrain simply so that the party had someone at an obelisk at midnight (or whatever)) on the basis that having died once her loss was no real loss thereafter -- she was on Borrowed Time.

I'm not saying it's wrong to kill characters, or right to protect them, but it's a Dangerous World in the dungeons so (in the words of someone who was as close as you're getting (in my humble) to the scarred old warrior who watches as the party leave the tavern: "Let's be careful out there."

[(Anonymous)]

As someone said earlier, expecting the sort of roleplaying you get face to face in an online game may be expecting entirely too much. That said, you could argue that in a game universe where cloning and/or ressurection are commonplace Zander's character is the odd one: 'normal' people might regard him as suffering from Thanatophobia: an unreasonable and irrational fear of death.

As to how death should happen in RPGs: I was appalled when I read in the rules for HEROQUEST a statement that's been repeated here: 'Death should never be the result of a die roll'.

In my opinion having a model of how the universe works and a set of game mechanics that allow you to determine randomly how death comes and to whom is the only thing that makes RPGs capable of handling death at all. Because if I have to say to my players 'Artistically speaking, I think your characters should die now' then it will shortly kill any sign of friendship I have with my players. Let us agree the rules and then let us play. And let the dice decide....

Michael Cule
GM for Hire
Gaming Dinosaur Second Class

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I see what you're saying, but I think I disagree.

In a properly run game, death, if it happens, is not the result of a die roll, but of a series of choices made by the character. The die roll just furnishes confirmation. It's not random. If it were, there would be no point in the characters making choices at all.

So yes, you do say to your players, in effect, "Artistically speaking, I think your characters should die now," and if you've run the game properly, they may be upset about it, but they agree with you, *as players*, that that is the logically necessary result of their actions. They would have far more reason to complain if "oops, sorry, just as you're wiping your sword having polished off the last Archdemon a grand piano falls on your head." (Unless that was a feature of the game that they had a chance to find out about beforehand, I hasten to add...)

Having said that, it is my proud boast that I've never permanently killed a character, nor (if I ever game again) do I intend to. They're much more fun alive...

As for EVE, I go with demoneyes, taking his point that the other players aren't really roleplaying at all (they don't in D&D either, now I think about it), and Mr V. Fear of death is a body thing as much as or more than a mind thing, and a being that does not have the basic survival instincts is not a human being. It's a puppet being worked by someone sitting safely in front of a computer and probably playing poker in another screen at the same time...

Not how I play.

[(Anonymous)]

Now, see I don't go into dangerous situations with my players expecting it to turn out one way or another. I do go in with their consent to explore a world that is dangerous for their characters and with the understanding that they *might* die.

What I suppose I'm saying is that I like my worlds to have the quality that shit sometimes happens. Sometimes you fumble and the sword goes through your own thigh. Sometimes you die as meaninglessly as Tasha Yar. And that's just the way it is.

Michael Cule
Aging Gamer Geek.

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

Confession #2 -- In the games I've run, and even more so in the ones I've gamed in, The Dice Rule. Mostly because of 2 reasons -- firstly if there is going to be random chance, I'd rather the mechanism be a known and "transparent" (horrible PC phrase there) one. And secondly because Fate (as exemplified by the dice) is an inherent part of the fantasy mileu. I'd trust The Lady before I'd trust a DM to be objective when it's my character against hisr eleventh-level demon that will wreck his plot if my character kills it, but I *have* run the character through a flawless ambush and got a perfect back-stab/assassinate opportunity.

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Phil and Zander, for giving me an excellent reason *not* to invest in EVE. Pirates are bad enough -- accountants and merchant bankers gaming as pirates would be about as bad -- but accountabnts and merchant bankers gaming as pretend-pirates while killing you and ripping you off (Mind you, I was watching the "Out Of Gas" episode of 'Firefly' last night) is beyond tolerable in anyone's book (surely ?)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I can't honestly recommend EVE at the moment. I'm sticking with it partly to see if I can beat the system and get to the top without any further leg-ups (legs-up?) from the OMGSo!Rich! brigade, partly because (wouldn't you know) having created a character I'm loth to abandon him, and partly for the moments when it actually becomes fun. If he dies, I won't be bothering with the clone...

Out Of Gas is superb.

"But Mal, what do you need two mechanics for?"

"Really don't."

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

And in your games, Soren, the dice, honestly rolled, tend to do what is most dramatically appropriate. Which is why I like it when you DM.

Gee, maybe I should checked first...

[jahura.livejournal.com]

I find this whole topic very interesting. I have yet to participate in a D&D venue (although I do have beginner dice ready to go at a moment's notice) but employ that character sympathy to every game I take part in. Even in Yu-Gi-Oh! I try my best to give my monsters a fair shake. I don't sacrifice unless I absolutely have to, which often is my downfall but at least I walk away with a clear conscience knowing they did their best.

But I find the timing of the subject notable, considering the circumstances, lol...