How to Implement Save or Dies in a Balanced D&D System

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Why not?

Wow.

Do you really not understand this? Seriously? This badly?

I'm finding this hard the believe.

[deaddmwalking]

Since there's some confusion, here's the definition I'm using of a deathflag:

This is a binary choice (on/off) made by each player regarding the status of their character; when the deathflag is 'off/down', they are 100% immune to death. When the deathflag is 'on/up' they are vulnerable to death. Players are encouraged to choose to raise their death flag at thematically appropriate times (possibly with a mechanical incentive).

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I was going to try and get you to focus on how you yourself just said this can be up or down at the players option with only "encouragement...

... then I realized you are being fucking dishonest. I DIRECTLY addressed how even when used and raised as intended this doesn't do what you think it does. So you just once again pretending this is only ever used as intended and NOT as it could be used as written is just you ONCE AGAIN flat out refusing to acknowledge any input from anyone else at all period.

Worse, doing so in a way where your avoidance indicates a total failure to understand/acknowledge even what you are avoiding. "But your conclusion is wrong because I'm going to use THE SAME best case assumption you used!" is just... are you really this bad at this?

[MGuy]

Trying to glean whether or not dead can legit understand the issues people have raised about his system and what it actually encourages is pointless. Currently every attempt to explain it yet again just has deaddm repeating how it works and what it's intended function is. Functionally, it has become a loop and I don't think it matters whether or not dead is incapable of understanding anyone else or if it's deliberate obtuseness.

In this last exchange we can clearly see this loop occur.
- I created a mechanic that is better than his deathflag mechanic in every way. Only allow death when facing boss. Does everything Dead claimed they were looking for.

- Dead then criticizes it with the argument that because the GM can arbitrarily can do things that's not enough control afforded to the players. A thing that Dead claimed they didn't want (remember dead complained that things being in the hands of the player didn't make it exciting enough).

- I point out that that's complaining about how the game works because the GM can always do anything at any time.

- Dead's response to this is explaining how his mechanic works. This of course totally misses the point because his criticism wasn't about what his thing did here. It was about the mechanic I suggested. That's the first loop.

- PL points out that Dead's mechanic does not make players immune to rocks fall everyone dies. Which should be obvious because anytime they raise the flag they can then be killed by anything the GM does. This is applying his criticism of my mechanic to his mechanic.

- Dead's response to this is 'what if the mechanic worked like how I said it worked? Then my criticism can't be used against it.' Which isn't really a counter the the criticism and it doesn't make sense as a response to the criticism levied. This is the second loop.

- PL shows incredulity that dead was completely unable to engage with the actual criticism being levied.

- Dead repeats how the mechanic works. Third loop.

Basically if you're following this thread and actually reading Dead's responses without asking yourself "Are they actually addressing the criticisms or just reposting a thing they said already?" you'll get confused because dead isn't moving forward in the back and forth. It's a loop that defaults to dead reposting the exact same mechanic and the exact same assertions. I do not know why this is and I am not going to speculate. The loop is happening and participating in it is insanity.

[deaddmwalking]

I honestly believe that everyone else is pretending the suggestion Tussock made is working differently than I understand it, thus why I have tried to restate it several times.

Mguy, if you haven't raised your deathflag, you are immune to 'rocks fall, everyone dies', right?

Your rebuttal that 'once you've raised your death flag then the GM can be a dick' is certainly true, but hardly convincing. Why did you raise your death flag in the first place? Presumably because you thought you understood the situation, determined that it was an acceptable risk, and made the conscious decision to risk character death for the bonus you get for raising your flag. Even if the GM isn't a dick you could have miscalculated - a lucky crit here or there and you could die. But that's the point. You made a choice to take a calculated risk because you thought it was worth it.

If, instead of miscalculating the risk, the GM pulled arbitrary grudge monsters out of his ass and beat your character to death the moment you chose to be vulnerable, that'd be upsetting. But if the GM was going to pull that kind of dickery generally, having the option to choose 'not death' would prevent it. But if the game isn't fun because the GM is a dick, the game isn't going to continue anyway.

Deathflag provides limited protection from GM dickery, especially in 'environmental encounters'. But a dedicated dick is going to find ways to ruin the players experience. Rules and advice that help reduce inadvertent dickery is still important. Not every GM understands what type of encounter constitutes a TPK, especially when they're new. Lots of GMs try to 'scare' players with obvious overwhelming force and the players fail to catch on. These cases where the TPK wasn't the INTENTION happen - read message boards and you'll see advice about how to handle a campaign that ended in a TPK that nobody wanted just about every day. Creating a mechanic that prevents 'accidental' TPKs is helpful. A mechanic that provides you narrative plot armor is genre emulative.

I don't think you should 'automatically have death flag raised' when 'facing boss'. I don't think that players want to choose death. I do think that players would like to know if 'death' is a potential consequence of a given scene. Under most RPG rules, it's always a potential consequence.

Perhaps a real example from play would be illustrative. In a published Paizo adventure there were two elevators. One of them was a trap and was smeared with blood (the warning) and if you attempted to operate it the door would close, the ceiling would drop down, and you would be crushed to death (guaranteed). Recognizing that this was most likely a trap (similar to the crushing room in Temple of Doom a veteran player of a rogue decided to trigger the trap with the intention of trying to interact with it, believing that disabling the trap might provide access to a place of interest. Per the rules, the rogue was crushed and killed with no chance to alter his fate - no chance to wedge a dagger in the mechanism - no chance to alert his companions and for them to force the door. Perhaps a better GM would have modified the trap to allow a chance for escape, but running 'as written' precluded that as an option. The result, one character death, one player upset about the character death. A mechanic like 'death flag' would have prevented that character death, resulting in a better game experience for everyone involved.

[Kaelik]

It is extremely weird that deadDM believes any game mechanic at all can lock the DM in the room and force him to continue a campaign he doesn't want as a permanent slave.

This is some legitimate chick track level the D&D game rules are magic that effect the real world level bullshit.

No amount of "I'm talking about accidental tpks." Changes that "rocks fall everyone dies" is literally a description of the gm deciding the game is over, not a description of an accidental tpk because you thought the party could handle the Dragon.

The obvious problem here is that deaddm does not know what an extremely common phrase means or is willing to pretend not to understand it to have a pointless argument in favor of a bad mechanic that even he isn't willing to argue is a good implementation.

Which leads to the inescapable conclusion that no one knows how many other phrases and terms deaddm doesn't understand that he really should and or is pretending not to understand.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Creating a mechanic that prevents 'accidental' TPKs is helpful.

A pity death flags as presented is not that mechanic. Nothing about it lets a group say "oops that didn't happen". The RIVAL option, the one where a defeat happens and then the players decide how fatal it really was, THAT is the "oops that didn't happen" mechanic that actually lets a group counter unwanted TPKs.

Death flags do NOT include any prevention or cure of accidental TPK, even if not ESPECIALLY your specific example of a "new GM" messing up by trying to "scare" players with overwhelming force... Death Flag is explicitly designed that players using it as intended are supposed to look at overwhelming force and raise their fucking death flags to deal with it and that's just use as intended.

[merxa]

yeah, it's not exactly a convincing argument to say your mechanic doesn't work because what if the GM is a total dick? No amount of hard written rules and mechanics will stop an asshole from being an asshole. Same thing goes for citing rule 0, no rules work if your counter argument is rule 0. Sometimes mechanics can be so terrible that people either refuse to play that system or ignore that part of it, but that doesn't necessarily seem to be the case here.

I am a little more sympathetic to avoiding mechanics PCs can abuse, but systems usually have broken rules in the RAW and after an exploit or two, more experienced players again will typically lay off.

Anyway, if you want to push ahead 'deathflag' as an idea here, it would probably be better to back up and find out what people find acceptable circumstances in which to 'die', as some people believe death should be entirely optional at all times. In some ways PCs choosing to either die or live after a defeat isn't all that different from having a 'deathflag' you raise up and down, the player just raises the flag after the fact instead of before it and there's no mechanical impact (beyond some finessing with PC loot).

Taken that way, the question could be, can the choice provided by krusk be flipped to occur before the event of pc defeat instead of after it? Will it be exciting and result in more fun, or will it more generally be received with tears as PCs regret their decisions? What is our baseline for comparison (for me my assumed baseline is PC death can happen as outlined in the given rules system, ie excessive loss of hit points or, as in the origin of this thread, a failed saving throw).

[MGuy]

Note that "rocks fall everyone dies" is a tangent. It should be obvious that a GM can do whatever. That's the nature of the game. It isn't directly a criticism of deathflags. It was brought up by dead as a criticism of a better mechanic. It's a dumb thing to argue over because that's the nature of the game and isn't mechanic specific so bringing it up is a dumb criticism. Further, even after I explicitly pointed out the loop dead did the repost rule and function move again! Is this on purpose or is dead really suffering from the kind of amnesia that allows them to forget that I already nailed what his mechanic does and implies 2 pages ago now?

If the player gets the bonus for opting in to being killable then this is a context where normally they could opt not to get this bonus and be unkillable. So the context here is "death doesn't exist and you're introducing a way to die". That's the lens I'm looking at this through. Whether it works or not depends on if that is the outcome that's being sought or if that is an intolerable consequence of its implementation. I have said it in other places and I'll repeat it here. I do not personally care much about what arbitrary goal a person has. I'm only interested in whether or not the rules used to get to that goal are a good way to get to that goal once it is decided. I know that death is desired in some way based on where this discussion came from. I figured that beyond that what was desired was a way to make possible death, or eventual death, feel meaningful while giving players a reason to worry about it. I offered what I thought were better ways to get that because I do not think simple numerical bonuses are a cool or interesting way to achieve that goal and essentially getting nerfed for not wanting your character to die does not seem like good design based on what I thought the design goal was.

It does feel like a waste of time to keep up with claiming that X isn't X. An ability that trades defense numbers for offense numbers is not the same as choosing to open yourself up to permanent character loss in exchange for numbers. One is taking on a penalty for a bonus, both dealing with numbers that are in the game. The other is trading character loss for numbers. These are not the same thing. To even get to the point where you equate one to another requires some mental gymnastics that aren't really required for this discussion and are very unconvincing. Especially with the added context that outside of taking this risk characters do not die.

Let's be reasonable and not waste more text over a thing like that. You want characters to die. I do not think this is an interesting way to get there. You do. Why do you think this way is more effective, interesting, or whatever than just letting players choose when or where their characters die? How is this better than not giving them the choice at all and just deciding that death is on the table should the required circumstances be met?

I already nailed this. No one who is actually criticizing the thing is confused about what it does. Dead just has not been able to actually engage with actual criticisms. Before the loop repeats and dead reposts what the rule is or what the intended function is again I'll highlight that doing so does not address any of the problems people have laid out.

[Kaelik]

yeah, it's not exactly a convincing argument to say your mechanic doesn't work because what if the GM is a total dick?

No one is arguing that death flags are bad because the gm might be a dick.

Dead dm is arguing death flags are good because they prevent rocks fall everyone dies.

Which isn't true. And is a very dumb argument. And based on (intentional) misunderstanding of the meaning of very basic things.

[merxa]

given krusk's self reported success of utilizing death flags, we have empirical evidence that death flags as a mechanic can work -- sure the death flag is raised or lowered after the fact, and perhaps that is what makes it work, but i still find it an open question on whether a death flag taken before the fact can work, no one has presented some fool proof logical construction that necessitates it cannot work. And the truth is, some group somewhere could implement a death flag mechanic and have a great time as that is the nature of ttrpgs and there will be some niche somewhere that is having fun doing the opposite of whatever you think is fun and maybe that is because their group has had statistically amazing or fun dice outcomes. The same trivial observation can be made on the corollary -- the most amazing mechanic that 99% of groups fall in love with could be hated by some groups and that might just be because they had terrible dice outcomes. I'm not here to slay the long tails of probability and hopefully no one here is foolish enough to attempt it.

for whats it worth, i don't think dead dm had some intentional misunderstanding, honestly i found it confusing for people to complain characters can still die even when they haven't raised their death flag (and again the defense for making that statement seems to be 'what if the gm is a dick' or 'rule 0'), why even make that argument? Of course rule 0 exists, of course people can stand up and walk away from the table, that is so well understood that when someone feels the need to bring it up as a way to argue against your mechanic, it feels like that person is arguing in bad faith. I'll repeat myself again: telling someone their mechanic sucks because the GM will invoke rule 0 or not run the game is a bad argument and possibly one made in bad faith. It's a lazy, boring tautological argument to make.

So far it seems no one besides krusk has offered what they believe to be acceptable circumstances for PC death to occur (and if someone else has, please restate it or direct me to which post it is covered). And krusks answer is 'never' unless the player explicitly wants to die. If people can define those circumstances then mechanics can be made to support those outcomes or mitigate death from non-acceptable circumstances.

anyone?

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

...krusk's ... krusk ... krusks ...
anyone?

Krusk WASN"T TALKING ABOUT DEATH FLAGS. The death flag discussion started a few posts (and weeks) AFTER Krusk's last post. Also...

...sure the death flag is raised or lowered after the fact, and perhaps that is what makes it work,

THATS BECAUSE IT WASN"T A DEATH FLAG. Krusk described what amounted to the rival option people have been presenting to compare death flags against. Arbitrary post facto decisions about death after a defeat has occurred.

So yeah perhaps the fact it is the thing that isn't death flags that people keep saying works where death flags fail MIGHT be what makes it work JUST MAYBE.

Honestly Merxa. Get it together.

[Kaelik]

for whats it worth, i don't think dead dm had some intentional misunderstanding, honestly i found it confusing for people to complain characters can still die even when they haven't raised their death flag (and again the defense for making that statement seems to be 'what if the gm is a dick' or 'rule 0'), why even make that argument? Of course rule 0 exists, of course people can stand up and walk away from the table, that is so well understood that when someone feels the need to bring it up as a way to argue against your mechanic, it feels like that person is arguing in bad faith. I'll repeat myself again: telling someone their mechanic sucks because the GM will invoke rule 0 or not run the game is a bad argument and possibly one made in bad faith. It's a lazy, boring tautological argument to make.

Again, it was dead dm that first brought up rocks fall everyone dies as a reason other people's suggestions were bad and then explicitly argued that the death flag is better then those other mechanics because unlike those other mechanics that are bad because they don't protect from rocks fall everyone dies, the death fall is good because it does protect from rocks fall everyone dies.

It is very odd that you continue to argue that everyone else is wrong for doing the thing that deaddm did, but that deaddm is right for not doing the thing he did.

[merxa]

in terms of rocks fall and everyone dies, dead gm usage at the beginning of the thread isn't, technically, correct. he uses it in reference to a trap (death? trap?), but clearly he believes the mechanic of deathflag will save the pc in that situation.

afterwards, i quote his usage of the term in one of replies. After that mguy uses it in the, 'correct' way, which is what dead gm is confused about because he immediately responds insisting the pc will in fact be saved from 'rocks fall'. Clearly dead gm didn't take the reference to mean unavoidable death by gm fiat, death by gm invoking rule 0, death by gm standing up and walking away from the table. That is pretty clear to me, you can go on with whatever belief you want and even continue insisting you are correct, but i'm unlikely to be convinced.

And is this really the interesting part of the discussion? again, no one wants to even attempt my challenge -- describe acceptable circumstances for pc death. anyone?

anyone?

crickets?

maybe kaelik fears losing street cred by giving a bad answer? At least krusk gave an answer.

[MGuy]

This is why I don't like following tangents. So many words wasted over dead's inability to tangle with how the game functionally works and refusal to think about what other people are saying. Anyways the "challenge" has already been answered. The best case scenario for PC death is letting it happen whenever the players decide that they want it to. The issue that was at hand was that Deaddm's thing was worse than that for reasons that have been explained.

Backing up, the decision to have PCs die is one of those things you can just want in your game. Trying to justify it beyond 'I just want it to happen' is a waste of time. The more interesting and useful discussion is figuring out what you want that process to look like after you've already decided that you just want it to happen. There are people who just don't want PCs to die for any number of reasons and that means no implementation is going to work for them because all options (other than players deciding to end it) are going to automatically be worse than just not doing it because they don't want it to happen in the first place.

[Kaelik]

in terms of rocks fall and everyone dies, dead gm usage at the beginning of the thread isn't, technically, correct. he uses it in reference to a trap (death? trap?), but clearly he believes the mechanic of deathflag will save the pc in that situation.

afterwards, i quote his usage of the term in one of replies. After that mguy uses it in the, 'correct' way, which is what dead gm is confused about because he immediately responds insisting the pc will in fact be saved from 'rocks fall'. Clearly dead gm didn't take the reference to mean unavoidable death by gm fiat, death by gm invoking rule 0, death by gm standing up and walking away from the table. That is pretty clear to me, you can go on with whatever belief you want and even continue insisting you are correct, but i'm unlikely to be convinced.

It is very weird that apparently your entire posting style is telling people they are wrong by writing an entire paragraph where you say they are right over and over again.

And is this really the interesting part of the discussion? again, no one wants to even attempt my challenge -- describe acceptable circumstances for pc death. anyone?

anyone?

crickets?

maybe kaelik fears losing street cred by giving a bad answer? At least krusk gave an answer.

Why won't someone just answer my question about whether ttrpgs should be Sci fi or fantasy?

It's obviously either or and there definitely aren't reasons for it to vary based on the kind of game you are trying to design.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

And is this really the interesting part of the discussion?

I REMAIN incredibly interested in how you cannot tell the difference between the death flags discussion and the thing Krusk discussed, which is the same status quo/rival proposal to death flags that I, MGuy, probably Kaelik and everyone under the sun has been comparing death flags to (not in a favorable way for death flags).

You just now fucked up so hard you took the thing everyone was holding up as the superior alternative to death flags and seem to be trying to use it... to defend death flags.

Admit your obvious cock up or shut up, that's my challenge to you.

[merxa]

Kaelik, if you cannot answer the question then your criticism of a 'deathflag' feels rather quaint, since you're unwilling to advocate for any sort of PC perspective on the issue, therefore surmising the original deathflag concept as good or bad is rather impossible.

as for you PL, i'm confused by your desire to engage with me -- have you figured out if you like to roll dice or not, and are you ready to share that with us? Or would you rather just say outlandish things because you need some attention thrown your way? Hi PL! Hey are you doing today! good? yeah! Whose being good? you are! yes you are! oh you're such a good, good human. yes you are!

[deaddmwalking]

To me, it looks like more of the same bullshit directed toward Merxa rather than toward me.

In games of the imagination, like Cops and Robbers, arguments about who shot who and who is dead tend to be a major problem. Rules help establish the shared reality of those games. Importantly, these rules determine the results when players disagree about the result they want. However, even in cases where they agree about the desired outcome, there's disagreement about what is a reasonable outcome.

As terrible as Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull is, nobody wanted Indy to die in the opening sequence. However, surviving when it seemed impossible to survive ruined the willing suspension of disbelief for many in the audience, effectively ruining the movie. The character remains alive when there is no conceivable way he could possibly survive.

In cases where players decide whether they live or die based solely on their preference, there are a couple of potential problems. First, players have a lot of reasons why they don't want a character to die. Choosing death is a bad choice. However, any nod to realism demands that death is possible, whether you want it or not. Possibly more importantly, the possibility of death is needed to maintain the shared narrative - outside of cartoon physics or the Matrix, there are things that simply aren't survivable. Choosing to survive, when it seems impossible, does have a burden on the shared narrative and may erode the fun of the group - even for the player that chose to survive.

Even creating the illusion that death is real and a possible consequence of these actions can go a long way to addressing what is fundamentally a preference of play. Many people, myself included, play the game trying to survive but open to the possibility that bad choices, bad luck, or some combination of circumstances can result in a character death. In that 'success' is measured by 'surviving' if survival is guaranteed then succeeding has no connection to my actions or choices as a player - it is effectively disempowering.

Building a rule into the game has a direct impact on the shared narrative. If the death and dying rule says that the first time anything that would kill you happens you are instead unconscious for primarily narrative reasons, it still shapes the shared experience of the game. When something that looks deadly happens (but it isn't), the players will know to find a way to describe the action in a way that leaves the possibility for a character to have survived. Maybe it looks like you rode a tank all the way down to the bottom of a chasm, but in reality you grabbed a hanging vine and clawed your way back to the top of the cliff. Knowing that the rule is there helps shape the game; perhaps players and the GM could learn to shape the narrative in a less concrete way (so the character does exist in both a state of being alive and dead simultaneously with only observation determining which is correct), but a rule helps push that.

I think there are a lot of people that believe that character death should be possible but simultaneously want to avoid it 100% of the time. I also think that there are people that believe they should be able to 'lose' an encounter, but simultaneously want to win 100% of the time. Telling them they never die or that they always win are not satisfying; telling them they could die or they could lose even though they never do is satisfying.

I still believe that a death flag (where players choose whether they are currently vulnerable to death) is a potentially good way to support the necessary narrative belief for many people that death is on the table without leaving the possibility for an unsatisfying character death in 'routine circumstances'. This is a rational position based on what I believe are common psychological principles of people who participate in role playing games. Choosing to die (or not) would not appeal to all players, so this seems like a generally good compromise solution.

I've read through every response and I still don't think anyone is providing a coherent explanation for why a mechanic like this is inherently bad or obviously wrong. Certainly it does not completely remove death from the game, but I don't see that as a universal good - removing death is absolutely possible, but very few games actually do - presumably because they also feel that removing something from the game that we intuitively understand is a possible consequence of heroic action (like being eaten by a dragon) has negative consequences, too. I think most players and many GMs will agree that reducing character death, especially from trivial or unexpected situations, is generally good - players will generally be happier. To me, a death flag seems like an effective way to do that without writing the consequences of actions completely out of the game, too. Now I can see a lot of ways to actually implement a death flag, and depending on implementation, some are going to have a different impact on the game. But from my perspective, getting the player to 'buy in' by making the choice seems like a really important step to achieve the best possible outcome - death remains possible, but only in significant scenes where players are aware that death is possible.

[merxa]

Anyways the "challenge" has already been answered. The best case scenario for PC death is letting it happen whenever the players decide that they want it to. The issue that was at hand was that Deaddm's thing was worse than that for reasons that have been explained.

thank you for your response. I don't personally subscribe to this, but i think it is a very valid view and ttrpg's should probably incorporate this as an optional rule unless it is especially against the vibe of the game. For example, paranoia might lose some of what makes it fun and interesting if death was always optional. Instead paranoia gives you 5 clones, so whenever you die one of your clones from the food vats gets called up to replace you. Maybe optional death for a longer paranoia campaign, but i'd probably adapt the concept to the game system by instead letting people earn extra clones or handing out extra clones at the beginning of a session.

For games to be fun and engaging it requires some level of challenge -- if every obstacle is easily solved, if nothing carries any risk, if you never experience any set backs, if your choices don't seemingly matter, then the game not likely to be very fun nor engaging and people are likely to quickly get bored and stop playing. Death is of course going from 0 to 100 on the consequence-o-meter, so I am interested in exploring how players could engage with escalating consequences, but taking death completely off the table doesn't feel like a satisfying solution to me.

And giving players everything they want, that's not necessarily the best game design, for one thing players may say or believe they want something but sometimes it turns out that they don't actually want it or quickly find once they have it, it isn't so interesting or fun. As an extreme example, why bother having players roll dice? why don't they just say what they want to have rolled instead?

Pulp cthulhu -- i've already mentioned it has a luck mechanic that allows a PC to expend all their luck (minimum 30), and survive to the next scene after what otherwise was certain death, its pretty similar to what krusk outlined except it does require an important meta currency and it is possible to run out of it (for context players generally gain 1d10+5 or 2d10+10 per session -- but it also has the 'blaze of glory' mechanic, where a PC may embrace their death in exchange for succeeding on some additional action before their demise. I think its worth exploring the idea of narrative weight, that if a character is going to die, a player can make that death more significant or impactful.

Some of a players fondest game memories are when things go awry, when a few bad rolls put the party in a tight spot or series of unlikely events occur and conspire to cause the unexpected, and sometimes PC death can be the highlight of the story, but whether that player would have willingly chosen to die in the heat of the moment, thats not clear, and making PC death entirely optional to the PC takes away that possible outcome. Maybe that isn't worth it to most, but some groups probably want to retain the possibility. There isn't some one size fit all rule, especially not for something as important as pc death.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

as for you PL

You mistook a description of something against the position you are defending as the position you are defending and tried to use it as an attack on people that were already openly in favor of the thing you mistook.

You made a very public very stupid mistake.

Stop waving your arms and whining to distract.

Admit it.

It's your only chance of returning to anything resembling respectable relevance.

The first step towards convincing us anything else you say is right, is admitting it when we very clearly catch you out saying something stupidly wrong. This is necessary, you don't get to throw a childish tantrum and start crying about dice again to solve it.

[Kaelik]

Kaelik, if you cannot answer the question then your criticism of a 'deathflag' feels rather quaint, since you're unwilling to advocate for any sort of PC perspective on the issue, therefore surmising the original deathflag concept as good or bad is rather impossible.

If you think shadowrun, D&D, and paranoia should all have the exact same death mechanics then you are both very stupid and never going to actually design a game that doesn't suck.

The very first step you should be able to do, a step 0) if you will, is to determine what the appropriate death mechanics are for the game you are designing, and that is going to be a different thing based on different games.

Sorry if this boring truth get in the way of your attempt to dunk on people for not advocating a contextless universal death rule that is the best for everything.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I don't think merxa is hung up on the subtlety of different game genre requirements.

I for one haven't bothered to care about such nuances and just advocated for post defeat group decisions on fatality. But to merxa that doesn't count, Krusk... advocated for the same thing and to merxa it DID count... but as a pro-death flag mechanic argument.

There is not a connection between you acknowledging games that require differentiating treatment of character death and merxa being intellectually incapable of acknowledging more than one answer for more than one scenario.

Merxa simply doesn't acknowledge your answer because merxa thinks presenting a "challenge" and ignoring all responses is a winning debate gambit.

Essentially. Merxa isn't misunderstanding you. Merxa is being a petty child.

[MGuy]

Anyways the "challenge" has already been answered. The best case scenario for PC death is letting it happen whenever the players decide that they want it to. The issue that was at hand was that Deaddm's thing was worse than that for reasons that have been explained.

thank you for your response. I don't personally subscribe to this, but i think it is a very valid view and ttrpg's should probably incorporate this as an optional rule unless it is especially against the vibe of the game. For example, paranoia might lose some of what makes it fun and interesting if death was always optional.

I do not know what you think my position is and I'm going to just tell you I stopped reading this as soon as I got this point because you have to have not read my posts, even the one you quoted, to not realize that I've made this point. Paranoia is a game that has an intended experience for its players that is fundamentally different from a DnD like game. The question you asked is what is 'acceptable', perhaps even 'most acceptable', not 'what is the best mechanic for every game and intended game experience?'. If the enlightened view you're espousing is that different games can have different death mechanics to fit certain ends congratulations on making a point I already made, both where I quoted myself from earlier and in the post you got that quote from me from. What's more I don't know why you're treating my position as different from kaelik and PL's. Both have already also pointed out that letting it be opt in is superior.

The issue isn't that either of them or I don't understand this bit. It's that dead had a bad mechanic. When confronted with the issues of that mechanic dead was unable to process the criticisms which led to the loop I pointed out. Currently PL is on you for misunderstanding the context of the actual discussion. I do not know why you are criticizing kaelik since they haven't posted anything disagreeable. If there's a particular mechanic you want to promote for a particular game you like or are intending to make then you should just go with that.

[Foxwarrior]

I still believe that a death flag (where players choose whether they are currently vulnerable to death) is a potentially good way to support the necessary narrative belief for many people that death is on the table without leaving the possibility for an unsatisfying character death in 'routine circumstances'.

Your idea is that a mechanic that clearly and unambiguously states that the character absolutely cannot die is a good way to please people who don't want their characters to die but like the suspense that their character might die? I hope you're not a good judge of character.