I’ve been re-reading the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition rulebook and a curious thought struck me: somewhere along the way death became meaningless in my group’s games.
First, I’ve always been a proponent of risk versus reward and that for the purpose of dramatic tension there must be that element of danger. Without it victory seems hollow. And that has had me thinking that partly why our games the past several years have, at times, felt like hollow exercises, just going through the paces.
I believe the way it came to be is through entirely reasonable means: we’re all good friends who would hang out even if it weren’t to play a game and the (unspoken) social contract isn’t to fuck over the guy next to you or behind the screen running the game. And somewhere between trying to be a nice guy–and a good friend–we took death out of the equation.
Back in “ye olde days” when I walked to school uphill both ways, we measured XP on a per character basis. As recent as 2002 in the 3E “Mithril Star” campaign there were characters of different levels. It was cool, too! There was the bad-ass necromancer who had a level on every character, the late-comer dwarf fighter who was a little behind, and the chronically dying elf played by an idiot who brought up the rear. We even had per-individual role playing awards. While death may not have been the ultimate setback for any character–this was Dungeons & Dragons after all–there was certainly an element of risk and a feeling of danger.
Fast forward today and we universally handwave character experience, arbitrarily assign levels for good group play and don’t recognize individual accomplishments, save through some arbitary mechanic like Action Points. We have parity across the board because that’s what friends do.
But you know what? It’s pretty boring. My current D&D character can’t die. We’ve had several characters in the game die and it’s nothing more than a minor speed bump and the loss of Action Points. The combats don’t feel tense or where your next action could decide life or death, they feel more like exercises of “what’s the best way to get out of this to advance the story and get the phat loot?” In the worst case you might lose a magic item or two.
Now this isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. About four years ago we did have a D&D game where there was death and as someone who was on the receiving end of it let me tell you, it sucked. It wasn’t so much about the dying part, but the nature of being penalized for having a sub-optimal character and choosing to do the heroic thing (dying while trying to save the thief/warlock) and getting kicked in the nuts for my trouble. It was also a shitty encounter, frankly. Given the option for the party to spend nearly all of its finances resurrecting the character and taking a healthy XP hit I elected to just shelve the character (and her massive background). I didn’t see the point in putting a poorly-designed character in an even worse situation going forward.
So, today, in our PC-centric world of perfect balance and parity among characters is there a place for individual XP gains? If a player doesn’t make it to a game and doesn’t get a share of the XP, what happens when you have characters of different levels? Is that a bad thing? Now you have the grizzled veteran who’s never died and the lower level character that’s missed a few sessions. Are we to the point where World of Warcraft has rekindled that pleasure zone of watching the XP bar slowly fill? Is the game better for it?
In the old days we sure didn’t mind. I have to wonder how players would react today.
Is it time to kill somebody?
Isn’t a meaningful threat of death or a significant loss, a critical part of a game. If you don’t bet something on the outcome, your involvement is likely to reduced. Of course there are many forms of game, and many forms of engagement or enjoyment within the game which might not feature loss or death.
Making choices is usually at the heart of a game, and betting resources (inc life) on the outcome of your decision. A system that softens this too much or takes away the threat, feels like it is missing something.
I think your comment about the character dying to save another character in a bad encounter is right on the money. It happened to me as well, and it still bugs me. We’re heroes! When we die, it’s supposed to mean something! Character death can happen, but it should happen gloriously! It can also happen in the “No heroic measures” way if you are wanting to switch characters.
Also, it’s funny, as we just got into a discussion yesterday about how our last campaign fell apart because of too much character death. The in-game mechanic wasn’t a problem (the new character came in at the same level as others), but it was the continuity that was a problem. From 1st to 12th level, in a group of five players, each had an average of two character deaths. Doing a full reset on backgrounds (not to mention character creation) wasn’t so much fun.