1. I can't help but think of all the fantasy settings that almost immediately undermine death, just as a general concept, in their setting by making resurrection possible, or directly confirming the existence of gods/afterlife. That kind of thing just completely ruins the universality of death, the parallels in the fiction to our own Human Experience, and as a result cheapens every fictional death in the setting, whether the characters come back or not. There's something seriously wrong with your story, I think, if the common cold is tougher to get over than the a date with the reaper.
2. How do we reconcile making character deaths meaningful in an RPG with the fact that most (almost all) RPG systems are predicated on serial mass-murder? Sure, it's often the case that our "designated victims" are inhuman monsters, or contrived to be inherently evil to avoid the issue entirely, but it's still a *massive* amount of blood on our heroes'/players' hands, and I don't think I've ever seen an RPG where the "good guys" don't wind up having a higher specific body count than the "bad guys." Which isn't to say I don't think it's possible to write compelling and engaging death scenes with characters who've killed a lot, obviously that's not the case, but rather that there's the kind of weird tension in RPGs, specifically, where we're expected to care about the deaths of friendly NPCs/PCs, but not to think about our potential moral culpability in murdering 600 goblins or whatever.
Question: I'm curious what you think makes for more effective (friendly) character death: something pre-scripted, where the character(s) dies in a scripted and predetermined manner (EG Aeris in Final Fantasy 7), versus more reactive scenes, where the death is or can potentially be a consequence of the player's actions (EG Wrex in Mass Effect 1). Does giving the player agency in the scene make it more powerful, or does it rob the death of its power by enabling players to "game" the whole system and avoid the death entirely? Or better yet, a "Kobayashi Maru" scenario where the player's actions will lead to a deadly outcome no matter what they do, but *who* dies can vary based on what they do and/or random variables, making the meta-gaming goal not about evading the death, but about killing or saving one character over another.
1. Allowing cheating death without consequences is generally a bad idea and most good fantasy doesn't do it. For example, Arcane just brought a beloved character back to life, but then he was a freakish zombie and they blowed him up.
2. Fantasy works best when the fantastic elements are metaphors for real life troubles. In this case, fantasy helps us deal with our awareness that we may be forced (personally or as a nation) to fight for our lives. NB: VERY frequently, when reading about the Ukraine conflict, I see Russian soldiers referred to as "orcs."
As for your question, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. Dead is dead.
Neil Stevenson did this masterfully in Cryptonomicon. I’m going to avoid spoilers for a 25 year old book, but I think I read it 20 years ago and I still think about it.
Nice call out on Blake's 7. I was in high school (in the, um, 80s) when I'd stay up to watch it at 1am when PBS went into it's "BBC phase". The intentional brutality hit hard, and stayed with me emotionally way past a time when I can even remember the names of the characters.
For an interesting inversion of the "good guys" trope, with some reasonably well timed deaths thrown in, I recommend the webcomic "Goblins".
These articles are always interesting and thought provoking. Thank you and keep writing (games and blogs)!
I keep meaning to give Blake's 7 a shot. Your mentioning it here might just give me the push I've needed.
Also, speaking of Doctor Who, I'm pretty sure Big Finish has done a bunch of Blake's 7 audio dramas, too. They might be worth checking out. Though I wouldn't expect them to be as willing to kill off characters as you imply the TV show was.
Rewatched it recently, and be warned that the first episode is absolutely deathly dull and the budget is hilariously tiny. The setup and scripts however can be excellent, and it's a wonder how somebody looked at Star Wars and said, 'I know - this'd be so much better if they all hated each other'.
The main problem with Star Trek: TNG is lack of conflict in the main cast of characters. (And yes, there were problems. That show has great episodes, but it had more than its share of dogs too.)
Yeah, sorry, the setting is Star Wars (scrappy rebels vs nazi-inspired empire) but the setup is Star Trek (Everyone on a ship, weekly adventures). I'm sure it was part inspiration for both The Office and Slough House.
Two Thoughts and a Question:
1. I can't help but think of all the fantasy settings that almost immediately undermine death, just as a general concept, in their setting by making resurrection possible, or directly confirming the existence of gods/afterlife. That kind of thing just completely ruins the universality of death, the parallels in the fiction to our own Human Experience, and as a result cheapens every fictional death in the setting, whether the characters come back or not. There's something seriously wrong with your story, I think, if the common cold is tougher to get over than the a date with the reaper.
2. How do we reconcile making character deaths meaningful in an RPG with the fact that most (almost all) RPG systems are predicated on serial mass-murder? Sure, it's often the case that our "designated victims" are inhuman monsters, or contrived to be inherently evil to avoid the issue entirely, but it's still a *massive* amount of blood on our heroes'/players' hands, and I don't think I've ever seen an RPG where the "good guys" don't wind up having a higher specific body count than the "bad guys." Which isn't to say I don't think it's possible to write compelling and engaging death scenes with characters who've killed a lot, obviously that's not the case, but rather that there's the kind of weird tension in RPGs, specifically, where we're expected to care about the deaths of friendly NPCs/PCs, but not to think about our potential moral culpability in murdering 600 goblins or whatever.
Question: I'm curious what you think makes for more effective (friendly) character death: something pre-scripted, where the character(s) dies in a scripted and predetermined manner (EG Aeris in Final Fantasy 7), versus more reactive scenes, where the death is or can potentially be a consequence of the player's actions (EG Wrex in Mass Effect 1). Does giving the player agency in the scene make it more powerful, or does it rob the death of its power by enabling players to "game" the whole system and avoid the death entirely? Or better yet, a "Kobayashi Maru" scenario where the player's actions will lead to a deadly outcome no matter what they do, but *who* dies can vary based on what they do and/or random variables, making the meta-gaming goal not about evading the death, but about killing or saving one character over another.
1. Allowing cheating death without consequences is generally a bad idea and most good fantasy doesn't do it. For example, Arcane just brought a beloved character back to life, but then he was a freakish zombie and they blowed him up.
2. Fantasy works best when the fantastic elements are metaphors for real life troubles. In this case, fantasy helps us deal with our awareness that we may be forced (personally or as a nation) to fight for our lives. NB: VERY frequently, when reading about the Ukraine conflict, I see Russian soldiers referred to as "orcs."
As for your question, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. Dead is dead.
A time when death was used well was in Proving Grounds VI of Sryth.
Neil Stevenson did this masterfully in Cryptonomicon. I’m going to avoid spoilers for a 25 year old book, but I think I read it 20 years ago and I still think about it.
Nice call out on Blake's 7. I was in high school (in the, um, 80s) when I'd stay up to watch it at 1am when PBS went into it's "BBC phase". The intentional brutality hit hard, and stayed with me emotionally way past a time when I can even remember the names of the characters.
For an interesting inversion of the "good guys" trope, with some reasonably well timed deaths thrown in, I recommend the webcomic "Goblins".
These articles are always interesting and thought provoking. Thank you and keep writing (games and blogs)!
The Red Wedding for me comes second to the events culminating in Tommen's death.
Maybe because it took place in two waves: the first loud, massive, and anticipated, the second quiet, intimate, and shocking.
To be clear, all these deaths were incredibly well-executed. My quibble is with the TIMING.
Fantasy nerds will be doing autopsies of what went wrong with that series as long as there are fantasy nerds.
Blake's 7 shout-out FTW!
Truly influential, unjustly forgotten show. Nerd deep lore.
You can still watch it on something called Britbox.
(Along those lines, Some streaming service should curate a Top 10 old Doctor Who episode section.)
I keep meaning to give Blake's 7 a shot. Your mentioning it here might just give me the push I've needed.
Also, speaking of Doctor Who, I'm pretty sure Big Finish has done a bunch of Blake's 7 audio dramas, too. They might be worth checking out. Though I wouldn't expect them to be as willing to kill off characters as you imply the TV show was.
Rewatched it recently, and be warned that the first episode is absolutely deathly dull and the budget is hilariously tiny. The setup and scripts however can be excellent, and it's a wonder how somebody looked at Star Wars and said, 'I know - this'd be so much better if they all hated each other'.
The main problem with Star Trek: TNG is lack of conflict in the main cast of characters. (And yes, there were problems. That show has great episodes, but it had more than its share of dogs too.)
Yeah, sorry, the setting is Star Wars (scrappy rebels vs nazi-inspired empire) but the setup is Star Trek (Everyone on a ship, weekly adventures). I'm sure it was part inspiration for both The Office and Slough House.