One comment that is made a lot when talking about linear deaths is that "there are far more interesting things to do to people than kill them".
Now, working on the assumption that we accept the principle of some negative consequences from being hurt on linears, I'm not sure I've actually heard many or any real suggestions as to what these consequences could be.
Limb-loss leading to a huge debt for regeneration I can see as being interesting sometimes, but we really need something else. A lot of things just aren't plausible in any situation other than a near-TPK.
Given that I'd rather see some consequences for an encounter going wrong, do people have any ideas?
-TheKremlin
_______________
Suggestions below.
Capture and ransom, Getting into trouble with any organisations you belong to for failing to complete your mission, The Fay being annoyed at Petrof was amusing. - Joey
- I'll note that last time there was a near-TPK and the monsters backed off from a probably-overstatted encounter, the PCs went on to get their objective anyway. Equally, many people seem to dislike this anyway. -TheKremlin
- Also, the Fae were annoyed at Petrof for a choice not actually nearly dying. I'm after stuff to do instead of death, really. As regards capture and ransom, this is hard to pull off without either driving the rest of the party off or having it happen to all of them. -TheKremlin
I'm not quite sure how to phrase this, but I think the problem is that PCs don't often run away. If you stick around and fight in the face of overwhelming odds, and you fail, the most likely consequence is that you die. It's so much easier to come up with consequences for running away. --Valtiel
- One thing to note is that part of this is a culture of not leaving downed friends, and part of it is that it takes a couple of people going down for PCs to realise the danger. A reasonably-strong-looking party can shatter in a matter of moments. -TheKremlin
I think that failure of mission, with attendant consequences, should be the obvious one. I think that if the refs have to step in to prevent a TPK, they should usually do so in such a way that, while the party succeed, they don't achieve their objective, and this should come back to bite people in general and where feasible them in particular in the leg - a) because whatever they wanted to stop didn't get stopped, and b) because they get blamed. Other possibilities include
- -Losing everything you're carrying - potions, money etc. PCs often don't carry much, though.
- -Getting less XP for the mission. I seem to recall this causing controversy, but I can't remember why.
- -Not a possibility at present, but could the system be modified to introduce the possibilty of permanent or semi-permanent hit loss? Not interesting, but a possible form of non-lethal consequence.
- -Mocking letters in the Gossip, recounting their failure and listing their names.
- -Loss of favour from patrons.
- -Working backwards over the last few linears: the Sleeper could have escaped and rampaged off or the party could have been made to promise to do something for the earth elementals guarding it. Nightmares could have escaped, and/or the party could have been forced to swear an oath to Crimson, and/or they could have gotten into trouble for letting peasants be killed. Officer Nick could have escaped, or had the party at his mercy.
--Jacob
- Most of these seem to deal only with the contingency of the entire party failing. I'm trying to set up interesting ways in which one party member can lose out without everyone going down, as well. -TheKremlin
- I like the way the group either suceeds or fails as a whole. This premotes teamwork which is needed on a linear.--Taxellor
- Hmm... Has anyone ever seen the film "Alien"? --Jacob
- The only ways one of the characters can die without having all the others die too is if the party is woefully short on healing, or if the monsters stab people up while they're on the ground, or if half the character party runs away. --Valtiel
- I'd quite like to see a Maelstrom-esque feeling of "they're hacking apart my friend over there, quick, save him! Fun roleplay whether the party succeeds or not. Giving standard monsters the option to throw off a 10-second, or 15-second, or whatever, execute would lead to some fun combat situations. However, this runs into the "death not interesting" crowd. -TheKremlin
- 10 or 15 second executes would go off far, far more often than they got interrupted in encounters with lots of monsters and a small party, I suspect. A 30, or possibly 60, second execute which needed to be announced in a loud yell might have some potential. --Jacob
- Why on earth do you need a mechanic for this? Loud rites of monsters KILLING YOUR MATE SLOWLY AND DRAMATICALLY tend to take... well.. however long feels appropriate, with the emphasis on the long. Monsters the larp world over have this strange tendancy to grandstand, and everyone can do halves. What you need is for monsters to think of doing this, and for someone amongst the monsters (possibly prodded by the refs/appropriate NPC) to take the lead. Whether this happens is just a byproduct of the fact that people have thought through what would be cool to do in a given situation - this is a very good conversation topic, thankyou :-) - Bryony
- You don't necessarily need a mechanic. You need a "this is OK" call, or else people bitch about you stabbing people up on the floor. -TheKremlin
- Killing someone already downed using halfs means that you've either got to wait ages and ages between blows or do it fairly quickly, neither of which is good, I think. --Jacob
- Jacob, I think you are misunderstanding. The point is to grandstand. You don't have to call *any* of your blows, but the odd half here and there gives it a bit more credence and urgency. There is no believable way to spend minutes hacking at a body and not have shredded it to pieces, but then a frenzy of hacking doesn't necessarily impart as much threat as the occasional slash accompanied by some good quality mocking. Kicking is a very cinematic way of brutalising bodies on the floor, and believably non-lethal over a longer period, but I suspect not everyone would be comfortable with this. Jake - when you say "a call", do you mean a system call (I disagree) or do you mean that someone needs to make the call (I agree). In general, if you ask the floaty ref if it okay to start molesting your prisoners in a non/semi lethal fashion, I would imagine the call will be 'yes, awesome'. - Bryony
- To me, at any rate, being trying IC to kill someone by putting repeated blows into them, but actually doing so stupidly slowly, breaks immersion far more than having an unrealistically-slow execution process which I can apply as fast as I can. --Jacob
- Why? You are grandstanding IC - it is a fact that monsters grandstand. Because they believe they are invulnerable. Because it's funny to lord it over your vanquished foes. It isn't an implausibly slow execution, you are putting on a show for the remaining PCs to say 'ha ha, we win'. You are savouring the moment of triumph. You are doing this IC.'
- But that requires being basically silly, to an unrealistic extent. If you want me to taunt the party like that while the rest of them are still alive and close enough to stop me then I have to value the taunt more than my own life; you're turning every monster into Dr Evil. --Lmm
- You mean like like Ghouls slowly eating downed victims rather than just claw-shredding them? I approve. --Valtiel
- As do I. Snacky, snacky, rip, rend, I am eating your left arm, crunchcrunch, your left arm is now on -1, etc. Allows for happy fun limb loss that actually takes a month to regenerate too :) --Pufferfish
- Yes, that is exactly what I meant. -TheKremlin