The Sacrament of Death

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
The other thing Bryce does is apply the SAME criteria consistently to hundreds of products---hammering home some fundamental ideas of his...despite the hobby's (and novice designers) obsinate repeatition of pitfalls. I do hope he gets that book out someday. It should be required reading at whatever on-line "Adventure Design for Fun or Profit" course gets taught.
 

Johann

*eyeroll*
Well, it's the last day of voting over at Eero's blog -- again (and there won't be another round) so I'm looking for fellow gamers who'd be willing to support the topic "The Sacrament of Death" by voting here: Correspondence is about Diligence.

Scroll down, click on "Current Poll" and vote, pretty please.

I'd love to see Eero write about "The Sacrament of Death", i.e. how to prepare players for a highly lethal campaign. I have my own ideas about this (e.g. I'd suggest starting with a funnel as per DCC), but I'm sure he has worthwhile things to say. I'll promise to report back and discuss the essay here once it becomes available.

I think/hope I'm not rigging the vote, as I'm driving traffic to a blog I love and you're obviously free to vote for whatever catches your eye.
 

Johann

*eyeroll*
Thank you, guys! The topic has come out on top (though Eero points out that it will take months until he gets around to it). He's also started to work on his own primer to challenge-based D&D (a la Matt Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming or Philotomy's Musings). The working title is "Muster: A Friendly Primer to Challenging Dungeoneering”.

I'm interested in the topic of high lethality specifically because after playing and running traditional railroaded games for two decades (with nary a PC death), I embarked on a personal quest to become a 'killer DM' - and get my players on board - in 2012. I blogged about it, too, starting with My Trinity of Old School Gaming.

I had to train myself out of the habit of fudging or rigging the game so all PCs survive, the adventure proceeds as planned, and there's a happy ending. I heartily recommend shock therapy.

Letting the dice fall where they may and focusing on running the world is probably old news to you grognards, but it's deeply changed my approach to gaming. The main benefit for me is that I'm as excited as the players to see how it all turns out - will they prevail or will we have another TPK? =)

My players have adapted but it hasn't - and sometimes still isn't - easy, as losing a character usually sucks when it happens and provides a benefit only over the long term. I'm eagerly looking forward to Eero's and your observations.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
My players have adapted but it hasn't - and sometimes still isn't - easy, as losing a character usually sucks when it happens and provides a benefit only over the long term. I'm eagerly looking forward to Eero's and your observations.
Right on, man. Short-term pain = long term games.
Hard lesson to learn. Character death is not really the goal...but without a legit threat, the game loses it's impact.
 

Johann

*eyeroll*
Eero Tuovinen's essay The Sacrament of Death is finally here! And it took only 9 months. ;) Thanks again to everyone who voted for it over at Eero's site!

I expected something in the vein of my own thoughts on how to handle PC death (prepare / habituate / grieve / celebrate) as voiced in another thread, but Eero's take is far bolder. He's putting forward a radical approach (not suited for every game): complex (and time-consuming) character generation via traditional RPGs combined with an utterly lethal game.

Here's my favorite quote:

"you’re creating the character to scream their individuality to the skies in a single characterization scene, to go into one fight or two, with the highest of stakes, and when they die that’s their story."
He goes on to point out that "You want to like character creation, because like 30% of your gameplay is going to be that." 😁

I'd love to revisit Rolemaster with that mindset. Character building and development interleaved with high-stakes combat, resulting in an (oral) anthology of interrelated short stories of brutal death.

Even if 'sacramenting' is not your cup of tea, there's a lot more to the essay. Check it out & let us know what you think.

Could you imagine playing like that? What effect(s) does character death have in your gaming (e.g. 'cheating the triad')?
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Hmm. Assuming your character will die is an attitude that must, by its nature, live in the metagame. I am not sure how compatible it is with roleplaying a character who likely has no intention of dying if they can help it.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
@Beoric : That's a really good insight. Dying may be incompatible with heavily immersive role-playing.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying carrying the out-of-game assumption that you will die is incompatible with heavily immersive roleplaying. Unless you are playing a seriously fatalistic character.
 
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