1. I've killed many of my characters in tabletop, so much so that I have a reputation in my group for suicidal apathy, and I very much enjoy the idea of running a meatgrinder storyline in the vein of the OSR movement; I have yet to find many people who would agree.
Online, I've killed a few characters. One was years ago in the wilds of AOL RP after a fight went bad, and he took his lumps and died. Life went on. Others have died as I deemed it appropriate to the plot.
There was a post I made much earlier in my time on RPC where I said I rolled each month for Verad to abruptly die of old age, and the percent chance gradually increased. I eventually abandoned that, for reasons described in 3. But it was certainly in the cards, and it still is if I sign him up for a roll event where death is a possible consequence of failure.
2. Reactions were mixed, ranging from "I respect that had the guts to pull the trigger on your own character" to "How could you waste your own story like that?"
3. I'm conflicted on this, because I think most people are generally bad at killing their characters for roleplaying purposes no matter how much pomp and ceremony they put into it. I include myself in this; I look back at several of these deaths and feel that they were done mostly for my own self-aggrandizement in whatever plot was being run at the time. Even in tabletop, when the deaths were the product of bad dice, I had put myself in positions where I'd be the hero of the table if I managed to succeed. My ego was writ large in the decision and I suspect that's the case for a pretty significant number of dramatic roleplaying deaths, hence abandoning the death-by-old-age plan I'd originally put in place.
Regarding the "unceremonious" part, I'm fine with that from my tabletop background, but I like to know at the start of the game if it's a possibility, and like to establish that it's a possibility if I'm the one running anything. Online, I think it's a contradiction; a sudden and unexpected death, however mundane the portrayal, becomes a big and shocking swerve because people either expect no deaths, or highly public, highly tragic ones. I'm not actually sure unceremonious death can happen at all online.
I want to add a fourth question, though: All else being equal, why would you choose to kill your character over retiring them alive? For the purposes of this, set aside when the death may have some narrative impact, as Sasha is planning. I mean a situation like Virella's, where the character's story is effectively done, and there is no further progression to be made. At that point, what's the value of death over living retirement?
Online, I've killed a few characters. One was years ago in the wilds of AOL RP after a fight went bad, and he took his lumps and died. Life went on. Others have died as I deemed it appropriate to the plot.
There was a post I made much earlier in my time on RPC where I said I rolled each month for Verad to abruptly die of old age, and the percent chance gradually increased. I eventually abandoned that, for reasons described in 3. But it was certainly in the cards, and it still is if I sign him up for a roll event where death is a possible consequence of failure.
2. Reactions were mixed, ranging from "I respect that had the guts to pull the trigger on your own character" to "How could you waste your own story like that?"
3. I'm conflicted on this, because I think most people are generally bad at killing their characters for roleplaying purposes no matter how much pomp and ceremony they put into it. I include myself in this; I look back at several of these deaths and feel that they were done mostly for my own self-aggrandizement in whatever plot was being run at the time. Even in tabletop, when the deaths were the product of bad dice, I had put myself in positions where I'd be the hero of the table if I managed to succeed. My ego was writ large in the decision and I suspect that's the case for a pretty significant number of dramatic roleplaying deaths, hence abandoning the death-by-old-age plan I'd originally put in place.
Regarding the "unceremonious" part, I'm fine with that from my tabletop background, but I like to know at the start of the game if it's a possibility, and like to establish that it's a possibility if I'm the one running anything. Online, I think it's a contradiction; a sudden and unexpected death, however mundane the portrayal, becomes a big and shocking swerve because people either expect no deaths, or highly public, highly tragic ones. I'm not actually sure unceremonious death can happen at all online.
I want to add a fourth question, though: All else being equal, why would you choose to kill your character over retiring them alive? For the purposes of this, set aside when the death may have some narrative impact, as Sasha is planning. I mean a situation like Virella's, where the character's story is effectively done, and there is no further progression to be made. At that point, what's the value of death over living retirement?
Verad Bellveil's Profile | The Case of the Ransacked Rug | Verad's Fate Sheet
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
