@OfficerRattlesnake How did Tin Star handle deaths? I may be mistaken but didn’t you have to restart just like any other game?
you had the choice to either accept it as part of your character’s story, or restart at the cost of some legend points.
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Oh, don’t even get me started on the crawler! That thing is scarier than most modern horror games!
i thought the winter lodge in fabIIe was a more effective jumpscare than most modern horror games, m’self d: the main fable series as a whole (well, i’ve just recently got the DOS game for the very first fable and it doesn’t work properly, and i haven’t played fab1e, so the ones i’ve played at least) does have a few very powerful moments/scenes.
although it’s not that difficult to execute horror better than a lot of developers in a genre do, simply because so many of them don’t know how to make horror and tension effective. i guess a discussion of horror games is a mite off-topic, though.
I think the question of whether you can die in a story-driven game is less important than the more general question: what are the consequences of failure? When should failure move the story forward, and when (if ever) should failure end the story?
If it is not a good time to end the story, then failure should either provide the player some kind of setback, or introduce some kind of complication.
If the MC loses the battle with the Onieromancer, maybe the Onieromancer doesn’t kill the MC, but the MC suffers bizarre dreams that reduce abilities until a way to break the spell can be found. Maybe the bilge trolls hijack the ship and force the MC to listen to their horrible sea shanties. Other possibilities:
- The MC loses resources (or more resources than they usually would).
- The MC succeeds, but then faces an additional challenge.
- The MC, or one of the MC’s companions, gets captured.
- The villain’s evil plan succeeds, and the MC has to deal with the consequences (my personal favorite).
If the MC does die, I think there should be some kind of satisfaction in the ending. The villains should suffer some kind of defeat, or the death buys time to send a warning to the cavalry, that sort of thing. You don’t want the player feeling cheated.
If you want to have meaningless death that brings the game to a halt, then the conventional way to minimize frustration is to minimize iteration time. Get the story back to that point of failure as quickly as possible, so the player can try a different strategy that is more likely to succeed.
Tin Star lets the player save the game at the end of each chapter, and it awards legend points for in-game achievements. If the MC dies, the player can spend legend points to restore a saved game.
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I’m with you, @BabbleYaggle . I feel as though this story that I am telling is too lore sensitive to have the main character dying and starting over multiple times. After all, you are the one that is supposed to be shaping this world not dying to it every battle. The way I have written the game, you are not just handed probability statistics and success chances, it is up to you to make the call on whether or not you want to attempt something that could potentially be dangerous; nor are you flaunted by grayed out options that you don’t meet the requirements for. For example, if you don’t exactly have a silver tongue, then dialogue that could potentially sway your target to your side won’t even appear as an option for you because you can’t think of it. Same goes for magic spells.
To play off this “here’s the situation, but its your call” I have decided to implement an Injury/Battle Wound system. At times you will be presented a risky option and if you decide to take it then you could be well rewarded if you succeed, however, if you fail you will be penalized and potentially seriously injured, which could hurt your stats in the long run. However, I agree with @Zane_Hiam , in that an option like: “Go Left” “You died.” always pisses me off, so I will always try to provide the player with sufficient information so that they can confidently decide whether or not they think they can succeed.
What are your thoughts?
I personally feel that not being able to die is a negative thing. To me, it then feels like there are no consequences to making a bad choice, but like you mentioned, I wouldn’t want it to be a go left, wrong choice, then I die. I would prefer it to be, try strategy x, but we don’t have the intelligence to strategize correctly, so my army dies, and I flee the battlefield. Instead I should have done strategy z where I charge in with my whole army but win the day with my actions inspiring my troops because I have high physical stats and likeability. That would make it to where we don’t die, but there are consequences to making a bad choice based on what our character can do.
@NoGo, that’s basically what I said except you don’t control an army. Haha
My bad, I guess that I didn’t clearly read it. Well then, I like what you are planning to do with it. 
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What if you get revived every time you die? That you won’t retirn to your last checkpoint or save but that the story just continues somewhere else.
@P0RT3R Something I did consider, however, resurrection has never been something I’m fond of in stories. If it were some kind of incredibly difficult thing to do and only happens once or twice if ever in history then okay, but when stories get to the point where people can just come back to life whenever with little repercussion then what does death even serve as…? There would be no point.
However, I don’t intend on my first serious story/game on being my last so all of these ideas are still good input and I appreciate the feedback.
Feel free to continue giving input on how you feel about negative repercussions in the game, but I have a new player input question that everyone should answer!
“You are a mercenary, hired by a noble to transport a very important golden box to the king. You are never allowed to open it and are attacked several times by various factions attempting to steal the item on your journey. Every opponent who was foolish enough to face you has fallen to your blade, however, and you successfully deliver the box to the king. As a reward the king has offered you several choices. He first offers you a pouch of 1000 gold coins, an incredible sum of money. Secondly, he offers to instead gift you with a blade of legend, crafted by ancient swordsmiths and said to be the sharpest and quickest blade in the world, that which money cannot buy. Finally, he states that he, himself, has no use for the item inside the box and rather than gold or a blade of legendary power he offers to give you whatever resides inside. Which offer do you take? And if you take the box why and what do you hope is inside?”
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Take the gold. All I know about the box is that the king doesn’t want it, and I clearly have no need of a sword other than my own. Unless the box itself is worth more than 1,000 coins, take the gold.
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Take the box.
I assume since the king wants it that its very rare or important and if its a tome of magic even better.
I can write multiple paragraphs with questions about the items and how I would approach this with knowing the answers. To make this short, can I keep the box with the gift inside it? If yes, I take the box and gift, its probably worth the 1,000 gold itself, plus the gift inside. If no, the I take the sword, I might learn how to make better swords from it, plus it will be an improvement over what I have.
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The box is only coated in gold for added fanciness, it would be too heavy were it solid gold. So it’s only worth about 50-100 gold itself. ;D
take the gold, probably. could do a lot more with money than a weapon or a box. one could think the box is probably valuable, but i think it’s a lot more likely that everyone who attempted to steal it was just blinded by the fact it looks like it’s made of gold, and therefore the value of what it contains corresponds.
besides, i think it’s important to remember that good is good enough–i don’t need the best sword ever created, i need something i can use properly and does the job. yinnow, as one of my favorite books puts it: you’ve got an enchanted fire sword and a plain iron sword, enchanted fire sword makes a cool sound and all that, but you wouldn’t really care what sound it makes when you’re facing down monsters.
How Can My Sword Be Quick If I’m Not Quick? d:
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To get from one village to the next, my party and I will make a boatload of money in the quickest way possible (a con or a bank robbery, maybe?) then rent the best possible transportation to take us there in style. As long as I’m fantasizing, dusty roads and saddle sores aren’t going to cut it.
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Is shooting them in the back of the head an option? Throwing something at them? I dunno, I would try not to let them get too far anyway, if they have a head start I’d probably track them down later. So yeah, I’m going to go back home and start paying off spies for information.
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Best friend, I guess? They must be a pretty awesome person if they’re that important to me. But if you tell me that I have a best friend and I happen to not like the one you’ve assigned me, I’ll go for prosperous king.
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Criminal. Why is “Thief” a class in D&D, but not “con artist” or “loan shark”? How is stealing someone’s money and running away more useful than convincing someone to give it to you? In more free-form systems I tend to make this type of character. Also, I hate unrealistic advantages more than unrealistic disadvantages; interesting characters, to me, are the ones who have challenges and work through them, not the ubergodlikepowerful warriorgods.
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More ordinary people. I want to know what people are up to who aren’t one of your adventuring buddies. Too often it seems like these games have “the heroes” who are a bit Mary Sue-ish, and then a lot of two-dimensional villains and background people. There are no small roles, only authors who don’t bother to create characters for them.
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@OfficerRattlesnake I’m pretty sure that an enchanted fire sword does more than make cool sounds, it will also add fire damage, it could catch things on fire, light the way in front of you. A legendary sword, like what is mentioned, is probably sharper than just any old sword, plus its more than likely that its enchanted, which can increase damage, give it elemental properties, make it to where it never gets dull. Also if its enchanted, in could increase dexterity and speed, even if you’re not quick, it could make you quick, especially if a really great mage enchanted it or the best weapon smith that ever lived made it, and enchanted it.
EDIT: If my post came off as obnoxious or jerky, I apologize for it was not my intent to do that.
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Indeed, one can only assume that a true master swordsman can only be enhanced through magic. But I like all your styles of thinking.
@OfficerRattlesnake, very logical, I am a fan.
@NoGo, of course! As every rpg in the past has taught us, never underestimate the potential power of magic.
@Sashira. I like your way of thinking and these are very reassuring things to hear. Some people sound as though they enjoy “ubergodlikepowerful warriorgods” while others share your view and just enjoy a good story of tragedy and victory and all the shit that happens in-between.
To answer your most recent question:
I WANT THE BOX. I play games to satisfy boredom and curiosity. If I have to throw myself down a pit to open the box rather than strolling over to the known rewards, I’m going down that pit. I won’t even care if what’s inside the box is underwhelming, as long as I now know what it is. Ideal contents of the box… hm, that’s sort of Schrodinger-like, whatever is in the box is less interesting than the box itself. I’ll take a hypothetical lizard, please.
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