How to handle a character death?

Hi everyone

I would really like to solicit some general opinions from the community on the subject of character death when playing a party based game, a perfect example would be BGII.

What do you think would be the best way to handle a single character getting "killed" would be? Some of my ideas so far have been -

The character really doesn't die but just gets taken out of play for a while and returns after a set amount of time.

Forever character death which most of the time will make the player reload the game.

In game death, the player has to perform a special task to return the character.

Any others I'm missing? Just wondering what gamers think is the best and worst approach? To be convenient and never really kill the character? Or give it the realism feel and there is always the risk of death?

I think he should die, with the possibility to be ressurected I also think the dead member should lose XP.

First off, IMO character death is always kinda lame. All it does is make you reload and play again. Killing off your character (or one of them) on a regular basis is just lazy game design masquerading as "challenge." The fact that lots and lots of games, including some classics like Fallout and BG2 do it doesn't make it any better.

So, solutions to character death, in descending order of lameness:

* Kill 'em off, and only let the player reload at preset save points.
* Kill 'em off, and let the player reload at any save point they have created.
* Have a really lame in-game explanation of how death isn't death (e.g. BioShock's resurrection tanks, NWN's or KOTOR's "they're not really dead, only knocked out cold")
* Have a marginally more believable in-game mechanic handling death, with appropriate penalties (e.g. a high-magic world with resurrection spells -- however, I have yet to play a game where this is done well enough that I wouldn't automatically reach for the save-and-reload rhumba anyway; Baldur's Gate 2 is a perfect example).
* Only kill off the player rarely or not at all; make the challenges different -- following quests, solving problems, having to run away from fights rather than getting slaughtered in them, and so on. (The Witcher managed this decently, although not perfectly, as did VtM: Bloodlines.)
* Work the death resolution mechanic into the fabric of the game itself. Planescape: Torment is the pinnacle of this solution -- your immortality is the central plot driver, and many of the weirdest and most wonderful twists in the game actually involve dying, accidentally or on purpose.

I avoid deaths completely.

When they die (mostly in battles), it is always a tragic accident for me, for which I've got 2 soutions:

- try the battle again (mostly)
- resurrect the character.

That's how I do it, if I can.

With no resurrection avalable, the options are limited to 1.


What i hardly ever see in games are characters which are *severely* wounded. I mean, *really* severely. So much, that they just need a whole lotta healing potions and/or several *days* to recover.

The plus in this ould be that a character injured that much isn't dead, but is in a state where he or she is "available" at a certain point again - after healing, which really should take several full days.

To me, this would be a kind of compromise.

I think this would be even more realistic. Okay, it would avoid real deatzhs, but on the other hand one hardly ever willingly goes into a situation of which he or she knows there is a very high possibility of dying. It's normally the player who forces the characters into doing so.

But real injuries are much more common in real life and imho neglected in RPGs. They should imho have must more drastical consequences, if the games should be realistic. Even to the point of losing let's say 1 point in dexterity because of the kind of injuries.

But that's just how I think.

Kill 'em off, and let the player reload at any save point they have created.

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I am also against saving in RPGs. So this options are gone for me.

* Only kill off the player rarely or not at all; make the challenges different -- following quests, solving problems, having to run away from fights rather than getting slaughtered in them, and so on. (The Witcher managed this decently, although not perfectly, as did VtM: Bloodlines.)
* Work the death resolution mechanic into the fabric of the game itself. Planescape: Torment is the pinnacle of this solution -- your immortality is the central plot driver, and many of the weirdest and most wonderful twists in the game actually involve dying, accidentally or on purpose.

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the solution in torment is great, but I don't think it is for all games, and a party member dying is not the same as the main character dying! All the party members are not immortal there, nor do I think it is a good idea to have a party of all immortals.

The run away mechanic is stupid and removes realism from the game, try to run away after your head was chopped off by a sword?

I'm big on keeping my party at the same XP level if possible, so if I can't resurrect I'll usually reload.

The "in the hospital for a week" approach isn't bad if resurrect/reload doesn't fit your vision, but keep in mind that if there's too much of a difficulty penalty for running your party "one man short", people will reload and your intent gets thwarted anyway.

GothicGothicness said:

The run away mechanic is stupid and removes realism from the game, try to run away after your head was chopped off by a sword?

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The trick is to run away *before* your head is chopped off with a sword. By this solution I meant that the game is structured in such a way that running away becomes a viable option. Most games aren't: they don't let you "exit battle" or shake off your enemies easily, or if they do, it's done in an extremely clumsy way. Thief does this pretty well, for example: you know you won't last long toe-to-toe, but you're good at running and hiding. So if you fumble a stealth kill, it's quite often possible to run away and hide in the shadows somewhere until things settle down, and then try again. VtM:B also used this mechanic for masquerade violations -- if you got the cops after you, you could evade them and duck out of sight until they gave up the chase.

I liked one of the ideas from rampant coyote I think . . . talked about having drama points that build up and can be used for special attacks or with enough of them for character upgrades, and have them lost whenever you save & reload.

With a dynamic like that in place the injured enough to be permanently weakened in some way / beaten senseless & robbed / thrown in jail etc explanation for why you're not entirely dead becomes a more enjoyable dynamic, there needs to be some kind of incentive to not just reload to the last save.

GothicGothicness said:

I think he should die, with the possibility to be ressurected I also think the dead member should lose XP.

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I second for the death and resurrect possibility but not for any penalty:

• I'm for a real death otherwise you don't feel well the real difficulty of the game fights. A significant number of fights I did in NWN2 OC was ending with only one character mage throwing a series of devastating spells. With MotB I win some fights with only Gann at the end.
• I'm for a way to resurrect just to let the possibility to stick better to the mood but with no penalty but some money and time.

I don't feel penalty of the dead is ok because:

• Most often a character dying is dying because it is the weaker of the team and penalty will make it even weaker.
• The second reason is that most penalty will just involve that the player reload.

About other elements that can be cool:

• If the main character die then the player should be able to play another NPC of the team until the resurrect happen. If that would be possible because of any reason than the PC death should be only for the time of the fight and eventually for a small money cost.
• Another detail that can be nice is to have different levels of death. If I remember well Temple of Elemental Evil is doing that quite well. At some point a character is dying and can't fight but after a certain time he will die for good. To avoid it you can heal him in some way.
• I agree that if some story elements can be linked to death that could be cool but I don't remember many good examples.
• I'm currently playing a game where you can let a party somewhere even fully dead or not and left it then instead of reloading, use a second team to rescue the lost team then bring them back to temple for healing or resurrection. It's quite fun even if sometimes I just reloaded instead of doing this.
  

I like the way it works in D&D, with a threshold in which a character is down unconscious and dying, but not dead. Obviously this only works for party based games, where your characters that are still alive can still tend to the wounded. With this, death can be made painful and costly, but avoidable.

Interesting discussion point. It would make a good poll, if someone can come up with short, succinct options.

Personally, I like the general direction of NWN2/KotOR but I'd make some key changes. I appreciate hardcore death is a badge of honour but I have limited gaming time and no longer have the patience or resources to replay the same content over and over. And we all know, most players simply reload. I know that the only times I have accepted a character's death was when I didn't like them anyway (either the personality or their effectiveness) - otherwise, I'm reloading.

With the right tweaks, I think "unconcious" characters can provide solid challenge without wasting time reloading. When I replayed some of the difficult BG2 mage battles back in the day, it was just a matter of time to get the right combination or get lucky with some critical hits. Surviving a difficult battle when you get down to your last character can potentially be more challenging than simply reloading.

What I'd like to see is some balanced consequences - nothing too dire or players will reload - so, perhaps having to apply first-aid that has a cost or similar rather than NWN2's everyone just stands back up.

So many people here mention reloading, and how boring it is to replay the same parts over and over. I think in a roleplaying game, saving and reloading simply should not be possible. It is a roleplaying game, deal with the consequence of your actions / character death / going to jail / failing a quest whatever, I acctually think all the reloading just ruins the immersion of the game. I don't think it is a good solution like many games did these days, to just make the game so easy that you'll never ever have to die and even none of your characters needs to, it just makes the game boring and makes you feel there is no real danger.

On top of that it makes in game gambling, multiple choice riddles, and multiple choice conversations meaningfull instead of the player reloading if it doesn't go the right way. It will also make players try parts of the game like being in jail, and ressurecting someone, which they'd probably just reload instead of dealing with in normal.

GothicGothicness said:

So many people here mention reloading, and how boring it is to replay the same parts over and over. I think in a roleplaying game, saving and reloading simply should not be possible. It is a roleplaying game, deal with the consequence of your actions / character death / going to jail / failing a quest whatever, I acctually think all the reloading just ruins the immersion of the game.

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I agree but what solution to avoid the boring part of replaying the same thing over and over?

I don't have an answer to this question but I'm playing a game that is close to answer quite well to this but inside its own context. The same approach would be difficult to apply in any CRPG. This game is Citadel: Adventure of the Crystal Keep (an old Mac RPG), this game has almost the mechanisms to let play without to ever reload. Here the mechanisms involved:

• During fights the party flee is allowed, it's an old game and the mechanism isn't detailed but it works not bad.
• At any point of the game you can abandon a party to use another and if you find back the abandoned party you can get it back or bring some corpse for curing or resurrecting.
• If a party join another party, any party can leave a member and get a member of the other team.
• If a member of the team is dead you can carry him in a special way, it's not automatic but no need to drop stuff to free some place in the inventory.
• A living team member can carry another one not conscious or dead and no need to drop stuff from inventory.
• If too many member of the team are unconscious and all can't be carry you can let one or more here and take him back later.
• There's a spell that allows keep with the party any body without to have to carry it.
• At last resort, if all members of the team are unconscious or dead then you can try build a rescue team to bring them back.
• Once you bring back a dead at town you can bring him at temple for resurrecting for a reasonable price.
• For unconscious members you have different way to cure and the ultimate solution is to bring them to the temple for curing them.
• The negative point is that all this mechanism is a bit destroyed by a definitive penalty to one attribute of a dead character.

But that is working well because:

• The location are limited and it fits the story that multiple teams try be involved in the story.
• The levels and game design open many path that can be used by the rescue team to join and save the abandon/lost team.
  • For example if a door is locked you can use a pit at level above to jump down and reach a position behind the closed door.
  • There are scrolls to bash doors, or try pick lock doors, scrolls to levitate and avoid be blocked by a series of pits.
  • Many levels have multiple stairs that link them.
  • There's an elevator that could be used in some case to go through another way.
  • There's a global party cache that can be shared by all teams so you can let her important stuff for any rescuing team.
• There's no heavy monster random generation plus fleeing a fight is often a viable option so most often you won't need to build a very powerful rescue team.
• As game progress it offers some NPC to join your team and they have unique abilities you tend to let at tavern some trained members and keep instead some NPC in your party. And first level up is very fast so you can change sometimes your party and have more than one party of PC trained.

The death definitive penalty destroy a bit the whole rescue system, but the game offers many different opportunities to use rescuing. As the game is sometimes a little tricky it can let a party blocked somewhere, or have all members deep in some part of the Citadel and close to death with no more healing possibilities.

I used that mechanism multiple times and it was great to rescue the team. I also resurrect few time some members of the team. But when all party was dead and even most time that a character died I reload because of the definitive penalty to an attribute.

GothicGothicness said:

I don't think it is a good solution like many games did these days, to just make the game so easy that you'll never ever have to die and even none of your characters needs to, it just makes the game boring and makes you feel there is no real danger.

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I agree but I doubt that the source of this design choice is to reduce the reloading and keep the immersion but more just to not cause problems to players so making the game easier.

GothicGothicness said:

On top of that it makes in game gambling, multiple choice riddles, and multiple choice conversations meaningfull instead of the player reloading if it doesn't go the right way. It will also make players try parts of the game like being in jail, and ressurecting someone, which they'd probably just reload instead of dealing with in normal.

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That's true I even remember be blocked in a game because after something happened like drop in jail and nothing obvious happening, I was reloading and searching how manage it differently when in fact I have to click the wait button a lot of time before something happen.

But I don't consider my way of playing is culprit. The case I quote above is just a puzzling I failed to solve until I consider the jailing differently (in fact the game was providing a good text hint about waiting). But for a more general point of view I feel it's more that some design choices should be done in order to avoid the reloading temptation:

• Dialog choices should never involve penalties or bonuses depending of the choice made during the dialog. Choices should only offer different options, none is obviously better than other from any greed point of view. Eventually some choices consequences should be much much later in the game so the player isn't tempted to reload.
• Action result should not be computed on a single dice rolling. For example pick lock a door shouldn't be a random dice rolling otherwise reloading is too much tempting. But a fight involving multiple dice rolling is ok. Civilization IV choose and interesting approach in that all random is computed and saved at some point of the game and reloading won't change a series of random event results. But even that allow some cheating through reloading by changing the series of events after reload. Overall it works ok in CivIV but for lock picking you have a bad rolling saved? Fine then use this dice rolling on a door you don't care open and come back on the door you want open.

I agree but what solution to avoid the boring part of replaying the same thing over and over?

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You'll not need to replay it, for example if you die, and ressuect in the town, a teleport could be open to where your team was before it died, so you could get right back to the same position. Sacred has a stone which you are ressurected at and the enemies you killed stays dead, so you don't really need to replay any part, maybe just avoid that monster that killed you and try to go to another place first?

The only problem with no saving loading is if there is a serious bug, to prevent you from completeing the game, in that case you can not resort to an old save. But I Think the developer could provide a fix in that case!

GothicGothicness said:

You'll not need to replay it, for example if you die, and ressuect in the town, a teleport could be open to where your team was before it died, so you could get right back to the same position. Sacred has a stone which you are ressurected at and the enemies you killed stays dead, so you don't really need to replay any part, maybe just avoid that monster that killed you and try to go to another place first?

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I haven't played Sacred (only tried a bit Sacred 2, not my kind of game) but I played few games with a similar mechanism. I see it bring more negative points that positive.

For positive points I see only:

• It keeps up the flow of the action. Could be important for an action game, but for a CRPG it's more a negative approach, it's much better to break the flow to push the player step back and think a little.
• It keeps up the immersion if you succeed share the easy automatic resurrection.
• It's a way to manage the difficulty and adapt it to player skills. I see this way quite lame.

On negative points I see:

• It puts you at same place where you died, either it's a sort of dead end for your character or just a way to gradually destroy the fun of a difficult fight through multiple respawn.
• A negative consequence is that you will to not have learn how handle the situation.
• Worse, through such mechanism you lost the opportunity to enjoy the tough fight.
• It will break the sense of danger so will break another important part of the mood.
• In all case that sort of automatic resurrection is quite hard to share and ends in breaking immersion mood.

Eventually a mechanism with save points like in BioShock is better but overall it ends in same problems.

GothicGothicness said:

The only problem with no saving loading is if there is a serious bug, to prevent you from completeing the game, in that case you can not resort to an old save. But I Think the developer could provide a fix in that case!

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That's another difficulty from a developer point of view. Anyway there's always bug.

Overall I feel that sort of approach bring more important negative points that positive points. But the main point is that I don't see single character game bring any good solution, it's more stuff for party game.

I just got an interesting case in Citadel. When trying opening a lock (it's a lock that flee when you approach to pick it up!!) I attract a monster. The fight was ok except that the monster gradually make unconscious party characters. During fight I put one character backward and when all but him was unconscious I flee the fight and it works. Then in a way I cure them (unconscious curing isn't automatic through time in this game) but then notice that because of the monster my wizard has lost all levitate spells in an area full of pits. A party with all char alive and wake up can jump above a pit but not two involving some complex level progression. Not to mention the case there's a door right after the pit. As I finally succeed open the door and it opened a new area I let a char to keep the door open and try explore further. If finally I don't find a solution to escape I'll have a tricky puzzling by leading a rescue team here.

If finally I get stuck, thanks I'll have a save back and will be able to reload but that will be another case where party lost can involve more funny game play.

GothicGothicness said:

So many people here mention reloading, and how boring it is to replay the same parts over and over. I think in a roleplaying game, saving and reloading simply should not be possible. It is a roleplaying game, deal with the consequence of your actions / character death / going to jail / failing a quest whatever, I acctually think all the reloading just ruins the immersion of the game. I don't think it is a good solution like many games did these days, to just make the game so easy that you'll never ever have to die and even none of your characters needs to, it just makes the game boring and makes you feel there is no real danger.

On top of that it makes in game gambling, multiple choice riddles, and multiple choice conversations meaningfull instead of the player reloading if it doesn't go the right way. It will also make players try parts of the game like being in jail, and ressurecting someone, which they'd probably just reload instead of dealing with in normal.

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I don't disagree with your general philosophy but, in practice, this often wouldn't work for me.

Save-anywhere is absolutely, a non-negotiable must-have for me. I can often only game in short chunks, so I don't want to replay the same bit over and over. If the phone rings or my 20 minutes is up and I have to go to work, I want an accessible save (I'm going to work in 30 minutes...after this post, I'm going to try and fit in 20 minutes of gaming...that's how it work for me).

Given that the saves are there, there is no danger.

Let's say a battle is particularly hard for me and I lose three out of my six-man party...am I doomed to restart because it's just too difficult to complete with half the party? Or, if there is a resurrection facility, what is the practical gameplay difference between death-resurrection and unconcious-get back up?

Save-anywhere is absolutely, a non-negotiable must-have for me. I can often only game in short chunks, so I don't want to replay the same bit over and over. If the phone rings or my 20 minutes is up and I have to go to work, I want an accessible save (I'm going to work in 30 minutes...after this post, I'm going to try and fit in 20 minutes of gaming...that's how it work for me).

Given that the saves are there, there is no danger.

Let's say a battle is particularly hard for me and I lose three out of my six-man party...am I doomed to restart because it's just too difficult to complete with half the party? Or, if there is a resurrection facility, what is the practical gameplay difference between death-resurrection and unconcious-get back up?

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I agree with you 100% about saving everywhere. It will always save everything so just like it was when you quit the game when you press quit. So no need to bother with any save mechanics.

Let's say a battle is particularly hard for me and I lose three out of my six-man party...am I doomed to restart because it's just too difficult to complete with half the party? Or, if there is a resurrection facility, what is the practical gameplay difference between death-resurrection and unconcious-get back up?

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If you one of your characters die, I do think he should get some XP or other penalty or maybe cost some gold to ressurect him, in case the player is out of gold, I think he should be allowed to borrow from the bank. You also have to get back to the latest temple if he died, or like in wizardy use an exspensive ressurection powder or get the high power ressurection spell. The difference is it is a big deal when your character dies and cost some time and effort to ressurect him, and you lose something by dying. Diablo 2 is almost the only game to have something like it, you always felt angry and sad when you died, and you tried hard to avoid it.

IN NWN2 for example all of your characters are down and you finish with your last health of the last character. Hoops everyone is up and you rest just like nothing happend but you acctually had a near death experiance with all your party!

GothicGothicness said:

So many people here mention reloading, and how boring it is to replay the same parts over and over.

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What about a bonus for NOT reloading ? Sounds almost like the Drama Points to me.

I wouldnt mind permanent death for the NPCs in a party, provided there are replacements available that are of a useful level (which can be achieved by tying NPC experience to the main character's ones, as in Kotor or NWN2). Replacing your lost comrades could be a good plot device. You'd need a large pool of NPCs for this to be feasible though. Maybe one could fill up the NPC pool with randomised generics after a while, just to avoid losing a certain "skills NPC".

Extremely frequent death in unavoidable fights is bad design though.