Permadeath

[theheroforgaming]

I guess it could possibly work with really good framing - the problem with this approach in general is that you are completely changing a mechanic (easy "revival" from KO status) that the player has worked under for the entire game.  They view falling in battle as a mild inconvenience - if I don't have a Revive item now, I can just heal them back up later.  A good night's rest will cure it!  I know you mentioned there could be some kind of paradigm shift like the antagonist removes their immortality by accomplishing some big goal, but in the player's mind I think they will treat it like a story-and-gameplay segregation rather than internalize that their characters are actually no longer immune to truly dying - because that's the expectation that you've reinforced for the last 10/30/80 hours.

Fair enough, although people's milage will vary regardless, depending on how they use revival items/inns/saving in their game. Some people may only have inns to revive, and they could create a story reason that gets the inn burned down or something, leaving you with no revives. Or perhaps you haven't really had the entire cast all at once before this, and haven't needed to use revival items. Or maybe Permadeath was there from the start, but had some methods that could somewhat mitigate it until the end. What you're raising is a very good point, but I feel like a final area that focuses on a slightly less forgiving ruleset could work if done right. If you've finished Mass Effect 2 before, I'm interested in attempting what the final mission did; a perilous final obstacle where, if you're not smart, you could walk away with your favorite party members removed from the ending.

I dunno. Spitballing here.

 

[Tai_MT]

As mentioned about a dozen times already...  Most players, when encountering "this character can permanently die", they simply restart the game to keep that character alive.  Can it be done well?  Yes.  It can.  Mass Effect 1.  No, not with the Wrex Example.  The Ashley/Kaiden choice.


When I played Mass Effect 1 for the first time, I was without internet.  I had no way to google anything, no way to look up anything, it was just me with my choices on a raw and blind playthrough.  I got to the point where I had to choose who to go back and help.  The infamous choice where one of them MUST die.  There's no way to avoid it.  And the characters kick you while you're down when you get back to the ship for whatever choice you made.  I lost one of my characters.  I restarted, thinking I'd done something wrong.  I tried again.  The other character died.  I thought I did something wrong again.  I ran through every possible permutation of that situation and couldn't find a single way to get them both to live.  I figured I maybe made the mistake much earlier in the game.  RPGs don't kill of your characters by letting you choose!  That's crazy!  I let Ashely live and she definitely kicked me when I was down because the only reason I'd chosen her was for the Paramour achievement and I rather liked dating her.  Her line to me?  "Did you pick me because we're dating?" or something to that affect.  Owch.  Yes, I did Ashley, but you make it sound like...  It was WRONG to make that choice.


So, I got internet back much later (I'd been playing freakin' tag with my provider for two months and they had lazy people who were unwilling to hook me up... I got two months free service because of their jerking me around, but I digress) and I looked it up.  I was on a New Game + of Mass Effect 1.  Making my second run through the game, and I looked it up to see if there was ANY way to make them both live.  To my horror...  No, there wasn't.  I had to choose.  That choice was permanent.  Nothing I could do would save them both.  One had to die for the sake of the narrative.


I have never made a more powerful choice in gaming in my life.  It seemed so unfair to condemn Kaiden to death just because I didn't like him all that much or just because I was romancing Ashley.  Those are stupid reasons to pick someone to die.  It seemed so mean of me to pick Ashley over him just because I liked her as a character and genuinely enjoyed romancing her, having her around, and using her in my Squad.  Was Kaiden's life really worth less than Ashley's to me, just because I was romancing her and I didn't particularly care for him?


I didn't have an answer that satisfied me.  To this day, it is still something that makes me wonder if I made the right choice there.  I even made a Femshep so I could romance Kaiden as some kind of means of redeeming myself.  I could choose him over Ashley for the same reasons I chose Ashley.  Maybe.  I guess.


But, for me, that was powerful.


Fire Emblem?  Not so much.  "Oh, he died.  Reload the battle."


If you are going to make a character death impactful, it needs to be absolutely necessary and irreversible.  It needs to be something you cannot just reload the last save and "fix".  Otherwise... prepare for players to be reloading it over and over again to keep everyone possible alive.  Don't think they won't.  They will.  This is why Roguelikes usually delete your save the moment you load the game up.  Because if you quit without saving or die...  You lose your character and progress.  Otherwise, you'd just keep reloading until you didn't die.  Your character would lose value.  Though, admittedly...  I keep backup saves in Roguelikes so I can just import them back into the game if I die ~_^.  Roguelike games aren't very good at spotting extra copies of a savefile somewhere else on the harddrive.

 

[Dr. Delibird]

As mentioned about a dozen times already...  Most players, when encountering "this character can permanently die", they simply restart the game to keep that character alive.  Can it be done well?  Yes.  It can.  Mass Effect 1.  No, not with the Wrex Example.  The Ashley/Kaiden choice.


When I played Mass Effect 1 for the first time, I was without internet.  I had no way to google anything, no way to look up anything, it was just me with my choices on a raw and blind playthrough.  I got to the point where I had to choose who to go back and help.  The infamous choice where one of them MUST die.  There's no way to avoid it.  And the characters kick you while you're down when you get back to the ship for whatever choice you made.  I lost one of my characters.  I restarted, thinking I'd done something wrong.  I tried again.  The other character died.  I thought I did something wrong again.  I ran through every possible permutation of that situation and couldn't find a single way to get them both to live.  I figured I maybe made the mistake much earlier in the game.  RPGs don't kill of your characters by letting you choose!  That's crazy!  I let Ashely live and she definitely kicked me when I was down because the only reason I'd chosen her was for the Paramour achievement and I rather liked dating her.  Her line to me?  "Did you pick me because we're dating?" or something to that affect.  Owch.  Yes, I did Ashley, but you make it sound like...  It was WRONG to make that choice.


So, I got internet back much later (I'd been playing freakin' tag with my provider for two months and they had lazy people who were unwilling to hook me up... I got two months free service because of their jerking me around, but I digress) and I looked it up.  I was on a New Game + of Mass Effect 1.  Making my second run through the game, and I looked it up to see if there was ANY way to make them both live.  To my horror...  No, there wasn't.  I had to choose.  That choice was permanent.  Nothing I could do would save them both.  One had to die for the sake of the narrative.


I have never made a more powerful choice in gaming in my life.  It seemed so unfair to condemn Kaiden to death just because I didn't like him all that much or just because I was romancing Ashley.  Those are stupid reasons to pick someone to die.  It seemed so mean of me to pick Ashley over him just because I liked her as a character and genuinely enjoyed romancing her, having her around, and using her in my Squad.  Was Kaiden's life really worth less than Ashley's to me, just because I was romancing her and I didn't particularly care for him?


I didn't have an answer that satisfied me.  To this day, it is still something that makes me wonder if I made the right choice there.  I even made a Femshep so I could romance Kaiden as some kind of means of redeeming myself.  I could choose him over Ashley for the same reasons I chose Ashley.  Maybe.  I guess.


But, for me, that was powerful.


Fire Emblem?  Not so much.  "Oh, he died.  Reload the battle."


If you are going to make a character death impactful, it needs to be absolutely necessary and irreversible.  It needs to be something you cannot just reload the last save and "fix".  Otherwise... prepare for players to be reloading it over and over again to keep everyone possible alive.  Don't think they won't.  They will.  This is why Roguelikes usually delete your save the moment you load the game up.  Because if you quit without saving or die...  You lose your character and progress.  Otherwise, you'd just keep reloading until you didn't die.  Your character would lose value.  Though, admittedly...  I keep backup saves in Roguelikes so I can just import them back into the game if I die ~_^.  Roguelike games aren't very good at spotting extra copies of a savefile somewhere else on the harddrive.

The mass effect 1 kaiden/ashley connundrum is the way I had planned to go abouts my game from the start when it comes to PCs being killed via plot. Not nescicarily the one or the other but a choice non the less that results in a not so great thing happening either way, pick your poison if you will.


I had a different experience with mass effect 1. I didnt have internet but I also didnt question as to whether or not I could save both. Something inside of me knew that you couldnt save both, so my choice should have been made easy right? I mean wouldnt a life be de-valued somewhat if their is, essentially, a coin flip as to whether or not they die? But no I had spent maybe half an hour or more trying to decide and a few times I picked one then reloaded a save because I regreted my desciion. That is because I got heavly invested, I didnt want to lose a single memeber of my crew because I saw every memeber as valuable as each other. 


I trully believe you can not truly do character deaths like this without the player being heavily invested (whether by immersion or something else).

 

[metronome]

As mentioned about a dozen times already...  Most players, when encountering "this character can permanently die", they simply restart the game to keep that character alive.  Can it be done well?  Yes.  It can.  Mass Effect 1.  No, not with the Wrex Example.  The Ashley/Kaiden choice.


When I played Mass Effect 1 for the first time, I was without internet.  I had no way to google anything, no way to look up anything, it was just me with my choices on a raw and blind playthrough.  I got to the point where I had to choose who to go back and help.  The infamous choice where one of them MUST die.  There's no way to avoid it.  And the characters kick you while you're down when you get back to the ship for whatever choice you made.  I lost one of my characters.  I restarted, thinking I'd done something wrong.  I tried again.  The other character died.  I thought I did something wrong again.  I ran through every possible permutation of that situation and couldn't find a single way to get them both to live.  I figured I maybe made the mistake much earlier in the game.  RPGs don't kill of your characters by letting you choose!  That's crazy!  I let Ashely live and she definitely kicked me when I was down because the only reason I'd chosen her was for the Paramour achievement and I rather liked dating her.  Her line to me?  "Did you pick me because we're dating?" or something to that affect.  Owch.  Yes, I did Ashley, but you make it sound like...  It was WRONG to make that choice.


So, I got internet back much later (I'd been playing freakin' tag with my provider for two months and they had lazy people who were unwilling to hook me up... I got two months free service because of their jerking me around, but I digress) and I looked it up.  I was on a New Game + of Mass Effect 1.  Making my second run through the game, and I looked it up to see if there was ANY way to make them both live.  To my horror...  No, there wasn't.  I had to choose.  That choice was permanent.  Nothing I could do would save them both.  One had to die for the sake of the narrative.


I have never made a more powerful choice in gaming in my life.  It seemed so unfair to condemn Kaiden to death just because I didn't like him all that much or just because I was romancing Ashley.  Those are stupid reasons to pick someone to die.  It seemed so mean of me to pick Ashley over him just because I liked her as a character and genuinely enjoyed romancing her, having her around, and using her in my Squad.  Was Kaiden's life really worth less than Ashley's to me, just because I was romancing her and I didn't particularly care for him?


I didn't have an answer that satisfied me.  To this day, it is still something that makes me wonder if I made the right choice there.  I even made a Femshep so I could romance Kaiden as some kind of means of redeeming myself.  I could choose him over Ashley for the same reasons I chose Ashley.  Maybe.  I guess.


But, for me, that was powerful.


Fire Emblem?  Not so much.  "Oh, he died.  Reload the battle."


If you are going to make a character death impactful, it needs to be absolutely necessary and irreversible.  It needs to be something you cannot just reload the last save and "fix".  Otherwise... prepare for players to be reloading it over and over again to keep everyone possible alive.  Don't think they won't.  They will.  This is why Roguelikes usually delete your save the moment you load the game up.  Because if you quit without saving or die...  You lose your character and progress.  Otherwise, you'd just keep reloading until you didn't die.  Your character would lose value.  Though, admittedly...  I keep backup saves in Roguelikes so I can just import them back into the game if I die ~_^.  Roguelike games aren't very good at spotting extra copies of a savefile somewhere else on the harddrive.

Then did you play Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3?


I love the way they make them so that the choices you made in the first one will affect the naration of the stories that come in the next sequels!


I don't mind permadeath, as long as the death itself has some big meanings to the story.


Anyway, I dated Kaiden as female shep, but when I I had to choose between Kaiden and Ashley, I chose Ashley and let Kaiden dies, almost immediately (I did know that one of them is going to die permanently beforehand). Not sure why....but I guess, I think that's how it should go. LOL.

 

[Tai_MT]

Then did you play Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3?


I love the way they make them so that the choices you made in the first one will affect the naration of the stories that come in the next sequels!


I don't mind permadeath, as long as the death itself has some big meanings to the story.


Anyway, I dated Kaiden as female shep, but when I I had to choose between Kaiden and Ashley, I chose Ashley and let Kaiden dies, almost immediately (I did know that one of them is going to die permanently beforehand). Not sure why....but I guess, I think that's how it should go. LOL.

I did play Mass Effect 2 and 3.  I was a little sad to see that if you were playing as a Paragon in the subsequent games, you never had to make another choice like that again.  They conveniently inserted options at very opportunity to let you save pretty much everybody.


They also changed the entirety of how the moral system worked and is portrayed (which annoyed me to absolutely no end) and made playing anything less than pure Paragon a very... less-than-optimal playstyle.  In short, you were punished pretty harshly for anything except a full Paragon playthrough of the series from 2 onwards.  I didn't really like that.

 

[Dr. Delibird]

I did play Mass Effect 2 and 3.  I was a little sad to see that if you were playing as a Paragon in the subsequent games, you never had to make another choice like that again.  They conveniently inserted options at very opportunity to let you save pretty much everybody.


They also changed the entirety of how the moral system worked and is portrayed (which annoyed me to absolutely no end) and made playing anything less than pure Paragon a very... less-than-optimal playstyle.  In short, you were punished pretty harshly for anything except a full Paragon playthrough of the series from 2 onwards.  I didn't really like that.

I must of had a slightly different experience to you in 2 & 3 because I did not feel handicapped by "having" to play full blown paragon. Granted I was still annoyed that there was the whole "do everything right and everybody lives" thing but I didn't feel like I had to paragon the entire game. I mean like my most previous run was a full renegade run and whilst some things do happen that are detremental (rachni in 1 not being in 3) but for the crew themsleves you can have everyone survive (obviously minus one of kaiden/ashley). Tbh I didn't choose every renegade option, just enough to have the renegade metre all the way or pretty close. In the ende though either way it is all roleplaying, I mean like if you are roleplaying renegade you would presumably not give two flying poops about anyone bar yourself (saving the universe is just collateral). In all honesty most people who have played the mass effect trilogy would be somewhere in the middle with a slight deviation towards paragon if the events where irl and they where actually shepard. Just my 2c though.

 

[Kes]

This discussion is veering off permadeath as a game mechanic (which is appropriate for this forum) and into a discussion of particular games (which belongs elsewhere).


As this thread was reanimated by a necro post, and the OP was satisfied with the answers to the queries I am closing this topic.