PERMANENT CHARACTER DEATH IN YOUR STORY?

I don't know. I don't recall having played an RPG that had a permanent playable character death.
But I think I would be OK with it as long as it didn't came completely out nowhere or if the death didn't feel cheap (like if my level 99 galaxy destroying warrior gets stabbed in his toe during a cutscene which then causes him to bleed to death).

I really wouldn't mind even a favourite character dying as long as he got a worthy scenario leading up to his death and makes sense in the context of what's going on (the classic sacrifice required in order to kill off the big bad evil once and for all works for that reason).

In my own game, while I don't have playable characters dying, I have some of them permanently leaving the party due to reasons that will hopefully make sense for the player that they'll be OK with. These characters do make some appearances again later on in the story, so it's not like they're gone for good (though they are from a gameplay perspective).

I'm not speaking from inexperience here.

author=Liberty
Kill them off, keep 'em dead. People die. Characters are people and should die (and I don't mean over and over in a 'not really dead, lol' way.) When you're dead you should stay dead. Unless, you know, zombies.

Harry Potter's deaths were quite well done. The issue with the deaths at the end wasn't who was killed but the short amount of time between the deaths, but then, that's war for you. People falling all around you, you become numb to it. It replicated the emotional severance quite well.


You... probably shouldn't play any of my non-realeased games (not that you can, but, you know... XD ) I'll kill the main character - I don't give a fuck! I had one game recently where the Hero of Legend, the Chosen Child who was supposed to take down the big bad... well, he dies within the first few minutes of the game because a kid taking on a big bad? Not likely to survive.

There was another which I was making for a competition where all the main party dies. They are fighting against mega bad guy and he beats them because he had a thief steal the sword of mcguffin the night before and replace it with a replica. Cue the main character not having a weapon during the fight. With their death the rebellion is crushed and they are branded traitors, remembered in history as evil terrorists who tried to take down the rightful leader (may he be praised!)

Shock factor ain't a bad thing, btw. Dunno why so many people hate it. Probably because they haven't seen it done right that often or get too attached. God forbid any of you read Game of Thrones.

Just... don't. Save yourself the heartache. Or do, and learn to appreciate how artistically someone can rip your heart out and slam it against the floor.

Also, don't play SubStar. You wouldn't like it. It's just as your last line says.

Uhhh, yea. I just watched Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows. I literally only kept track of like 5 dead characters, and I literally could not care less about the goblin. It's like this. Both me, and my dad cry at sappy movies when despite trial, the character makes it through and yea now they're going to meet all the other kids. I saw the Equalizer, and felt violated.

Emotional Impact = triumph over adversity, not the adversity itself. The other simply makes feel dead inside. Rather than sorry for their loss, you just feel emotionally cold.

I've watched Hallmark movies, I've watched horror films (Friday the 13th, Sleepaway Camp, and many of the Stephen King movies), and I've watched scifi/fantasy/allegorical films. I connect the most emotionally with the hallmark films. Why? Here's what I've discovered.

Horror is essentially tragedy. A bad horror writer simply emphasizes the flaws, and kills off characters worst to best. You generally don't connect with any of these characters, except maybe the best three. A good writer either makes the villains likeable (Sleepaway Camp and Friday 13th being good examples) making the viewers want them to win, or makes the heroes likeable having just one small flaw that makes them either the victims or the killers (Stephen King is a master of this, he builds quaint little towns where you know everyone's name). And yet, the horror film I connected best with, was Needful Things, because after all was said and done, the town did manage to band together thanks to the help of I-think-it-was-the-cop.

Best movies I've seen? In order of least to most emotional impact, None But The Brave (anti-war movie, about Japs and 'Mericans learning to coexist while temporarily stranded. You bonded with the characters until yes the plane comes, and they fight and kill each other. The films ends instead of "The End" with "Nobody Ever Wins"), It's A Wonderful Life (no backstory needed, the part where he gets the book from the angel and you see that autograph, along with the whole town chipping in for him), and Not One Less (a Chinese subtitled movie, it's about a school teacher in a struggling town who is told if she won't make her quota of the full class staying in class, she won't be paid. It starts slow. In fact veeeery slow, they're showing little things like how she has to reuse chalk nubs because they have zero money. How one girl is scouted for a sports team, and her being a simple country teacher, doesn't get that this doesn't count. Then the drama. One kid leaves school because he has family issues in the city, and she leaves town to go fetch him. It seems hopeless, I mean REALLY hopeless, it's a big Chinese city and the teacher barely is outta high school. But then... she gets on the news and the kid sees it, and they get a trip back to the school. The news donates facilities and especially chalk, and the sports girl visits the school for awhile. Every little detail works up to a satisfying finish, and both I and my family were fucking bawling. And I remember the entire thing from one viewing). Why? because with exception of the first, they were about the grand moment when it seems like everyone will fail/die/etc, but they don't.

The rule: You can kill off the character, but only if it leads to something good. Killing characters off, and having other characters continue to behave as if nothing happened basically makes the audience lose all interest.

Lest you think I'm some pacifistic "can't stand the sight of blood" type. I've seen Game of Thrones (I generally couldn't connect with the book because king this and prince that didn't really do it for me, I had to actually visually connect with them), up to season 3. I liked it for the most part. But the scenes where molten "crown" was poured on the guy, yea, let's put it this way. I didn't flinch or get squeamish. But I literally cannot remember the guy's name. I remember Joffrey, since despite being a royal prick, he's managed to survive quite awhile. I remember Tyrion, Daenerys, and Jon Snow, mainly because they are likeable characters. Now one or more of them may get killed post season 3, but my impression in that case? Okay, you kept him alive for that many seasons... why, exactly?

Also, I've written downer plots. Let's ignore the hilariously bad Oracle of Tao endings (universal destruction, eternal solitude, party killing, and even the good endings are creepy when you think about them). Each Tales from the Reaper chapter is a slice of life story, meaning it has a self-contained ending. The first was cute, and simply had a sick little girl die if you took too long by trying to grind the herb into liquid medicine (if you gave her the herb straight she had trouble chewing it, so it led to a false bad ending where the Reaper in question is "visiting her grave" only it's not. It's a vantage point where they can view the adult woman happy and in love). Second plot had only a bad ending (the Well of Souls is tainted, making people be reborn as monsters, so the Reapers track the reincarnation system, and find out humans are teaching other humans to become monsters on the karmic level. So the Reapers despite being attached to humans - which by the way, you got to talk to all these people and while not knowing their name, found out their personality quirks - they have to basically slaughter all these people, making it dip straight into horror). Third plot had a branched ending (a late teenager tags along with the Reapers when his spy gf is kidnapped. Yea, it was a silly premise, but interesting to write. Now after alot of sneaking through compounds and other trials, you come to where she's kept. Depending on whether you snuck in cleanly or left alot of blood and guts behind, she either kills him, does nothing (battle vs her kidnapper in the first two cases), or saves him. In the kill case, the Reapers make some comment of the pointlessness of humanity wasting their potential on murder. In the other two you find out that the spy girl isn't what she seems, and even the Reapers are unsure who she is). And finally, you have a story about Reapers in love. The actual most powerful story? Probably the third, followed by the first (any endings). The second was a good horror scene (despite being offscreen sound-only murder), but it didn't have any dramatic staying power. The fourth brings up an interesting point, it fell short not due to violence, but because me being kinda a bad romance writer, despite a sort of big ending, it didn't really read right. And the first one, the bad ending was still kinda good, despite being about a cute little girl dying, because it was a cute little dying. Being sent on by mostly sweet Reapers just doing their jobs (I mean, geez, you could forgive her dying because the Reaper of Death hated her job, the Reaper of the Afterlife guides her on, and it's explicitly stated that because she's young, alot of the crap that torments older people in the afterlife doesn't happen to her).

Essentially, I have a different take on this, because very little shocks me or makes me squeamish. I watched some prison film at like 8 (accidental, was at theater), and went on watching cartoons/anime. I don't get shocked or appalled easily, so the idea of death simply strikes me as a sad waste. And by sad I don't mean "inducing tears" I mean "lame". You know what actually makes me cry? The episode of pokemon where Ash, Brock, and Misty said goodbye (I think it was episode 500). No, I didn't cry when they left. I cried when he used the picnic tablecloth as a gas mask vs poison gas, and used the kitchen tools (they were probably metal chopsticks turned into western utensils for cultural reasons) to climb out of Team Rocket's trap and won with no pokemon, just his friends gifts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3qQsj8v3bk

And that's my point. Misty leaving is the closest thing to a "death" in the series. But it's how Ash copes with her leaving that counts.

Also, sorry. ^_^; This is kinda a thesis paper.

I'm a visual person. The only books I can follow are those that follow a single character, or up to three. More than 20 characters and I get lost in names. The show version I was able to follow very well, connecting with most of the characters. So I tried to get the book and read alongside. Didn't work, there were too many sections that were outright missing from the book, out of order, or otherwise messed up. So I realized I got a better sense of the characters from watching the show.

author=unity
Just out of curiosity, has anyone gotten player feedback of "I quit playing after Character X died. They were my favorite and I lost interest in the game" or something similar? That's kind of my greatest fear when it comes to character death, especially if you're killing off a really likable character.

I actually once quit a game (not indie) after I heard that my favorite character will die.

In another game I struggled, but ended up finished it anyway.

I didn't care about FFVII's character death because she really just sucked in combat in the first place and I never had her in my active party ever.

I hate the idea of making those who are going to die deserve it in some way. It's too easy a read. I want death to be shocking when it happens, realistic as I can make it. If someone important and liked is going to die it should hit hard, fast and painfully else it just waters down the experience. And if someone leaves the game because of it, it just means I made a very likeable character. I succeeded in doing what I aimed for in that front.
If they can't deal with the death of a fictional character, well... apologies but I ain't gonna change it. You've just verified my ability to create a shocking and painful death scene - just as I most likely intended. Thanks. ^.^

On the other hand, permanent character death of an NPC can be quite a great addition to the story.

In Alundra