Character Death

[jivex5k]

Let's talk about character death shall we?

 

I believe in BG if your main character died that was it, game over screen, reload last save.

However, you could revive fallen party members if you had the right skills.

I think...it's been a while, maybe it wasn't like that.

 

I propose that we don't show a game over screen until the entire party is wiped out.

[eimatshya]

I usually reload when someone dies anyway, so it doesn't matter much to me.

 

That said, I've never really understood the "instant game over if the PC dies" thing when there is resurrection in the game. It feels very arbitrary to have everyone except the main character being constantly ressurected.

[GhostofAnakin]

Perhaps the PC can be revived *if* there's a party member who can perform that spell. But if there's nobody in the party capable of using that spell, the game ends? It could be a compromise between being able to revive the PC no matter what, and not being able to revive the PC at all.

[jivex5k]

Perhaps the PC can be revived *if* there's a party member who can perform that spell. But if there's nobody in the party capable of using that spell, the game ends? It could be a compromise between being able to revive the PC no matter what, and not being able to revive the PC at all.

I'd prefer the dead character to stay dead in whatever area he died.

Then your remaining party could travel to town and get the required skills/items for revival.

 

I like the idea of 1 party member barely escaping death, resupplying and maybe hiring some temporary help, and storming back into the dungeon on a mission to revive fallen comrades.

 

I'd definitely put a decay time on the corpses though.

[Archmage Silver]

I'd be fine with just implementing it the D&D way with Resurrection spells. If you can't cast one and don't have a scroll for your priest to use, then you'd have to visit a temple or a healer and pay good money for it.

[ArchBeast]

I like the idea of Demon-Souls when death where natural part of the game, i think that our character could easly die a couple of times, in eternity wy have soul-based system so mayby adding dieing to a normal gameplay whould by great. :D

[Osvir]

Argh! This is so frustrating "Oh crap my main is dying... guess I'll see the death scene again and be forced to reload ah well *shrug* not like I've already seen it a couple of hundreds of times already *shakes fist*" (even worse is: "I haven't save in like 5 levels of this dungeon because it's been a breeze all the way until this freaking room and... oh well... guess I'll play something else" which is entirely my own damned fault xD)

 

I think this is some sort of coding thing linked back with the older games and older technology (I think?)... and I hope it isn't an issue today. So let us be able to bring our main character to the temple and ress him please :D there's also the question of "Lore" though, in Baldur's Gate (at least). When one of them *Spoilerspawn* dies they can't be ressed? It might be that too and have nothing to do with olden technology of the computer craft.

Edited October 10, 2012 by Osvir

[soulmata]

Permadeath is even better.

 

If a character dies, they are dead and gone forever. Time to saddle up, head to the adventurers hall and hire a replacement. Hey who knows - with the concept of 'souls' in this game, perhaps a fallen comrade's soul could come to posses a replacement body, very angrily shoving out the existing soul or turning it into a grudging room mate.

 

That's how I played through BG1, BG2, P:T, IWD and IWD2. And it made me a better player - when every fight could be your last, you start to get a lot more creative about how you approach combat. You stop hoarding millions of potions and scrolls, you stop relying on consistent RNG and luck to win, and switch to total war.

Edited October 10, 2012 by soulmata

[jivex5k]

Permadeath is even better.

 

If a character dies, they are dead and gone forever. Time to saddle up, head to the adventurers hall and hire a replacement. Hey who knows - with the concept of 'souls' in this game, perhaps a fallen comrade's soul could come to posses a replacement body, very angrily shoving out the existing soul or turning it into a grudging room mate.

 

That's how I played through BG1, BG2, P:T, IWD and IWD2. And it made me a better player - when every fight could be your last, you start to get a lot more creative about how you approach combat. You stop hoarding millions of potions and scrolls, you stop relying on consistent RNG and luck to win, and switch to total war.

I'm down for a permadeath setting too, but on one of the special difficulty levels.

[ReyVagabond]

Personaly i think death should be permanet but a its hard to kill, like first you are about to die for some time, and then you need to resive first aid from some one.

 

And despite of death beeing permanent it could be cool to infuse the soul of a dead companion to a bodie to make them resurect in some ways.

[Micamo]

That's how I played through BG1, BG2, P:T, IWD and IWD2. And it made me a better player - when every fight could be your last, you start to get a lot more creative about how you approach combat. You stop hoarding millions of potions and scrolls, you stop relying on consistent RNG and luck to win, and switch to total war.

 

The opposite is true, really: Permadeath makes you ultra-conservative and extremely afraid to take anything resembling a risk. This works with the tone and atmosphere some games try to present, but it doesn't mesh very well with high fantasy.

Edited October 10, 2012 by Micamo

[Tamerlane]

Resurrection, bleh. Unless it's worked in to the setting like in PST, it's a horrible, horrible thing.

 

We'd already revived Khalid a billion times, Jaheira, what the ****?

[ArchBeast]

What do you think about killing some companions during the plot. I mean let's say you fight the last boss and 3 of your companions must permanetly die during this event. Killing npc (not only during normal combat) but in plot related events lets take for evample mass efect 2 where almost everywan could die at the end of the game. Or Aeris from Final Fantasy 7.

 

I think that will give same dramaturgy, realism and climate to the game.

[soulmata]

That's how I played through BG1, BG2, P:T, IWD and IWD2. And it made me a better player - when every fight could be your last, you start to get a lot more creative about how you approach combat. You stop hoarding millions of potions and scrolls, you stop relying on consistent RNG and luck to win, and switch to total war.

 

The opposite is true, really: Permadeath makes you ultra-conservative and extremely afraid to take anything resembling a risk. This works with the tone and atmosphere some games try to present, but it doesn't mesh very well with high fantasy.

 

I disagree, and/or think you are misinterpreting my words. Comparing my own and my friends save games (using BG2 as an example), comparing our Ironman runs vs non-Ironman, the latter are item hoarders - you favors using spells or trying to "tough it out" rather than using your expendable items. We'd use lower-powered spells as opposed to our big nukes in an effort to save them.

 

Compare this to our Ironman attempts, where every fight was fought to win. We'd be much more aggressive about using potions, wands and scrolls. We spent a lot more time making sure people were at 100% health. We'd make sure every scout had a backup and no one was left alone, we'd have contingency plans for everything. We'd be crazy prepared and see everything except hitpoints as expendable. Killing speed was much more important than killing efficiency - if you could end a fight in 1 or 2 rounds and spend 2500 gold in resources doing such, or end a fight in 2 turns and spend zero gold, we'd much more heavily favor the faster option.

 

This is important because I think it reflects the conditions you're in quite accurately. That it's "high fantasy" is not relevant. If you die with 40,000 healing potions on you because you didn't use them, that's going to look pretty ridiculous.

Edited October 10, 2012 by soulmata

[Maf]

Hard to say how I'd like my death in a game.

Torment was awesome, but that totally fitted in the storyline so a bit unfair.

Having your main die and presenting the gameover screen leaves me with split feelings.

Maindeathgameover makes sense if you feel as 1 with the main character (a.k.a. thinking you ARE the main character).

And if "you" die, then yes it's gameover.

(you could also argue the "leader" aspect... where if the head dies, the body follows)

However you alter your gameplay accordingly, moving your main "out of the way" so you're ensured a continued game.

 

Maindeathcontinue makes sense in that if you can revive other characters... why not your main?

It's odd to include revive but somehow your main is not allowed?

I almost feel discriminated!

One of the downsides of this in my eyes is that you never feel "connected" with your main.

If he/she can die just like the rest.. why does having a "main" matter?

 

I guess it comes down to letting the game have a single protagonist (BG/PST) or having a protagonist group (IWD/TOEE).

It's the question I'm DYING to see answered (see what I did there? :D if it was already answered somewhere, please tell me!)

And as this is purely and entirely a matter of opinion, I'll voice mine right now:

I like seeing a single protagonist, but I might be biased because I liked BG/PST more than other purely group style games.

So I think I'm also biased towards a gameover if my main dies.

[Bill Gates' Son]

I don't think this is hard to do. If the main character dies, let him stay dead until someone revives him. Since the main character is important to the plot, all quests should come to a halt until your main character is back alive.

 

This may not be possible to do if your in final dungeon or something and you have no NPC on the team that can revive parties members. Perhaps the game over should happen in places like that.

Edited October 10, 2012 by Bill Gates' Son

[Sensuki]

I'm happy with the BG or IWD system. Doesn't bother me /savescummer

[Tigranes]

BG1/2 had an in-lore reason for protagonist permadeath; like Sarevok, your high concentration of bhaal essence means that your body literally disintegrates upon death, unable to store the essence any longer. Practically, I'm sure this facilitated a great many things like the problem of going into dialogue with your main guy dead.

 

I wouldn't mind either BG or IWD way, if sufficiently explained. Certainly don't want the 'unconscious' thing where they all get up immediately after like they just got knocked out with coconuts. The only thing they need to fix is an easy way to re-equip the newly revived, which would take like 3 mjinutes in IE games.

[rjshae]

For all we know there is something unusual about the nature of this setting that prevents those of a pure soul from dying in combat. Call it the will of the gods, if you wish. The meddlesome gods choose to intervene in the lives of the blessed by this means, restoring the victim back to full health. However, the recipient of their blessing is left marked in some manner.

 

"The Mark" is like a divine IOU; the character must perform a penance or divine service of some form before it will go away. The specific act may be revealed, for example, by a vision, or it can be resolved with a cleansing spell from a temple. If the character forestalls this act for too long, then he begins to suffer the most rotten luck; taking a penalty equivalent to a curse spell.

 

"The Mark" can be made permanent by the game, causing it to apply retroactively if the player does a restore to an older save. Characters can receive multiple marks and the effects will grow increasingly unpleasant. At worst it can result in a horrid, lingering death after suffering from leprosy.

[nikolokolus]

Since we know that souls are constantly being reincarnated, that sort of implies to me that bringing somebody back from the dead would be anathema -- interfering with the gods, or "the plan," etc. -- I guess it really does come down to the cosmology of the game world and how that ties into the mechanics of death. Personally, I always thought "raise dead" and "resurrection" was a little trite in the Dungeons and Dragons settings, especially in the CRPG derivatives of the ruleset.

 

I know most people will never go for a "true death" system (except on expert mode maybe?) but maybe there should be a successive penalty for each resurrection? In 1st ed. AD&D I seem to recall you took a permanent -1 constitution penalty and had a finite number of resurrection attempts (and % chance of success) based on constitution. Maybe something like that could be implemented, so dying isn't something that just gets brushed off as a minor inconvenience?

[Falkon Swiftblade]

you know what, I know it will sound funny, but I wonder why there even has to be killing in RPG's? Has anyone ever played one where you didn't kill people or baddies? I think I may create an rpg for a personal project, and instead of death, maybe they're banished to another plane of existence. You could still attack and fight them, but really deaths in games are mostly trivial anyways. I know Dark Souls is an acception to the rules, but I never really thought about how violent RPG's were, even if it's not blood and guts, you slaughter thousands of baddies. Now I have to rethink all the mechanics in RPGS to make em fun but different.

[Frenetic Pony]

So long as it's hard to revive dead characters I'm fine. I don't mind getting "knocked out" and then getting killed if the knocked out character dies from taking extra damage or something.

 

But the "game over only when the entire party is knocked out" style has always been far too easy for me. Then again I'm finding my first playthrough of Icewind Dale 2 to be generally fairly easy, so I can't speak for everyone.

 

Maybe you could tie it to difficulty level? Like on normal or easy your characters can only get knocked out, and it's game over when they all get knocked out, but on hard and above your characters die and you need to march back to a priest to revive for a lot of money. Sounds like a good compromise to me anyway.

[Remmirath]

I could see, on easy mode, having the whole only being knocked out thing. It is, after all, easier that way.

 

I would very much like actual character death to be an option. I don't really have much of a care about resurrection/no resurrection; resurrection certainly doesn't work for all settings, and I've no idea if it would for this one, but if it does I have no problem with it - although I do prefer if it comes with a cost (be it -1 constitution and system shock chance or something entirely else). It's less impactful if the cost is only in gold, I think, but it still works. I also like the "chunking" that could happen in Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale if the character took far too much damage, or from some spells, where the character would just be completely removed with no chance of resurrection.

 

While I wouldn't play through the first time in this way, I do like to have playthroughs of the game where I create a new character every time somebody dies, and clearly that doesn't work when nobody can actually die. Even if I'm making use of resurrecting and even reloading, I still prefer that the possibility of death is looming there somewhere in the background.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I remember that Niko! It is an interesting idea, but perhaps positive reinforcement is a better idea? The fewer time you've died across certain areas or something, the game can reward you with a strengthened soul somehow. Just a thought.

[Osvir]

This link:

http://www.pcgamer.c...we-know-so-far/

Trial of Iron gives you one save game, which will be deleted if you die.

 

Will the character be saved somewhere somehow so I can at least print it/screenshot it/upload it and brag with it or is it entirely disintegrated from my harddrive?