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[Parthon]

I think it comes down to what the player thinks is bad and subtracts from his enjoyment, and what the player can deal with and might enhance the game.

Those things that are 'bad' that come from the death of unique characters crop up a lot:

• Not being able to progress
• Missing out on dialog/cutscenes
• Making the game tedious
• Taking away vital resources or time

Which can be boiled down to: Giving the player a large and permanent disadvantage for losing a character.

If any of these things happen, the player is going to want to revert to a time before the death, or restart completely if they can't revert, or stop playing your game and go play something fun. Of course, if it's a short play game then they might wear it.

If the death is only temporary, or there's a raise mechanic, then it's not such a problem, but then we wouldn't be talking about permanent death any more.

So, if the player would like to stop playing if they are permanently disadvantaged, then the solution would be either to disadvantage them less, or reward them for losing a character.

So what kind of rewards? Story rewards, skill rewards, money rewards, equipment rewards. If the game ending still included the dead character, but in a more mournful way, then it wouldn't feel like they are truely lost. If the character's equipment and money were recovered, and perhaps some of their skills, then the loss wouldn't be so severe.

The goal would really be to have the player see the loss of the character and go "Oh damn! I can't believe I lost Jim Smith! Bastards killed him! Well, it's not a huge setback, but an opportunity for revenge. Attack!" and yet still later in the game think, "I miss Jim Smith. " Not enough to want to restart/reload, but enough to remember.

The other opportunity is just to have the cost of reloading/restarting be higher than the cost of losing the character.

[Craig Stern]

That's a good point, about there being some benefit to continuing even with a character death. Come to think of it, there kind of was a reward for losing a character in the last series of battles of Telepath RPG Chapter 2: the ending changed. Not just "this character died in X battle" like you get at the end of a Fire Emblem game--rather, the ending epilogue told you how everyone else reacted to the death and what impact it had on the world.

Part of the reason that worked in that game, though, was that the main villain was the one you relied on to resurrect dead characters for most of the game. So once you turned on her (assuming you did), you suddenly had permadeath. I'm not sure how I'd pull that off in TSoG. Hm...

[Jad]

Yesss, rewards for letting key characters live

AND

rewards for letting key characters DIE

that would seriously make for some great drama in my opinion, while also allowing for individuality in characters, which is some kind of awesome I think.

The hero of the people is killed in battle, all ground troops suddenly have a crazy enraged morale boost (if there's such a 'stat' in the game) making for some awesome retaliation revenge anger shenanigans

the next scenario, though, morale starts out low and you'll have to spend effort to get it up.

No, I dunno. This is an idea. If it is good, I do not know. But it's dramatic? Ehehe

[SirNiko]

I like the idea of providing a big stat boost when a character dies. You could even make it enough of a boost that it makes the combat trivial, so an unskilled player can kill off a hero once per battle to breeze through the game.

The idea of unlocking different, interesting scenes when some characters are dead is another good idea. You might want to be up-front that such a game isn't well-geared to completionists, but that's the only problem I might see.

I'd also encourage a system that lets players replay story battles once they've completed the game. This could include various markers that indicate which battles had the most casualties, so you can retry to whittle down the number of losses. This can introduce a bit of replay value, and players can work their way up to the best, no-loss ending even in a 40 hour campaign sort of game.

Lemmings: The Tribes used a similar concept, and it did wonders to prevent save-scumming. I could progress to later levels even after a bad run, and then could go back to save a few more if I wanted more lemmings to make the later levels a bit easier, or to get me a higher score.

-SirNiko

[siegarettes]

Hmmm... the last games that I remember doing anything similar were Fire Emblem and Gladiator, an old PC game.

Fire Emblem has unique characters whose deaths are permanent, and Gladiator would let you train your soldiers so that you would be more concerned in losing them.

Neither solution is near perfect though. I'd say a combination of permanent death, personalization and unique character traits would do it.

Backstories and special abilities maybe?

[Kalebo]

I must disagree,

Permadeath of unique characters either as game mechanich or as a punishment is discouraging. no wonder they usually load a previous savegame.
Also, in Tactics RPGs, its absurd when you have to fight a even battle but you end up winning without taking any loses, every guy is standing. I like neither.

Im planning to do a Tactic RPG (with some weirds ideas) and im going with: characters can die in a battle but they wont be permadeath, and they are gonna be ready for the next battle.

If you want to punish the player for letting a caharacter to die, you can make that the character doesnt level-up or he doesnt gain exp or even he is wounded and you cant count with him in the next battle.

Apart from that, i mus admit i love characters death, but not as a punishment. I love when characters die as part of the story or as a result of a choice you made.

In Short. 
  Characters dying because the plot, good
  Characters dying because YOU FAIL, bad

P.S.: I used a lot "as .... or as ...." i really dont know if thats right.

[SirNiko]

Im planning to do a Tactic RPG (with some weirds ideas) and im going with: characters can die in a battle but they wont be permadeath, and they are gonna be ready for the next battle.

If you want to punish the player for letting a caharacter to die, you can make that the character doesnt level-up or he doesnt gain exp or even he is wounded and you cant count with him in the next battle.

I probably used the example earlier in the thread, but Vandal Hearts on the PS1 (The original is the better one, I think) worked a lot like this. If a character falls in battle (They're all "main" characters) they are wounded, and disappear for the rest of the fight. This has two negatives: You now have one less fighter to help you, and two, they can't gain XP for the rest of the fight (They keep what they earned between the start of the fight and getting killed). After the battle, you get gold for killing enemies, and lose gold for losing allies, so you wanted allies to survive in order to maximize your profits.

-SirNiko

[AaronG]

It's not really perma-death but what if characters missed the next battle (or more) while they recovered from their wounds?  StarFox 64 was sort of like that.  If one of your wingmen (erm...wingcritters?) suffered too much damage they would bail out and miss the rest of that level and all of the following level (ostensibly while their ship was repaired).  Since a lot of the alternate routes in the game required having a specific wingman to open up it could really alter the course of the game.  Of course, StarFox 64 was designed to be played in one sitting - you can't even save the game between missions - but I actually view that as one of its strengths (I still pull it out for a playthrough now and again).

I really like the idea of perma-death conferring rewards, though.  Maybe you implement a, "hardened resolve," mechanic that effectively averages out the stats of the fallen character(s) as bonuses among the remaining team members; something that doesn't make you want to reset the game for statistical reasons.  Of course, you still lose the fun that comes from having an additional unit to use tactically.

I also think branching/dynamic storytelling would really resolve the, "but I want to see all the content!" issue.  Make it a trade-off instead of a lock-out and instead of feeling like they're missing out the player will actually be more attached to the game's narrative because it's been shaped into "their own story".  Have the party go the wrong way and travel through a less savory area because they lost their guide.  Maybe one or more fallen characters actually show up later as ghosts or prisoners in enemy strongholds adding content to the playthrough a few missions down the line from when they die.  Those are just examples that may or may not be any good but the point is to make death an opportunity for the player to put their own stamp on the game, not a punishment.

[Theotherguy]

I have never liked this idea in RTS games. Whenever you start to add "hero" units, or units that have specific, yet arbitrary importance, it stops being an RTS and starts becoming a point and click RPG.

For example, Warcraft III suffered tremendously by making it impossible to play the game without wielding hero, or "god" units as strategic weapons. I personally find this to be distracting from the core mechanic of the RTS game: tactics and strategy. RTS games shouldn't be about having the best hero units and defending them the best, they should be about managing your forces effectively.

That said, I don't mind having SOME "hero" units, especially in single player campaigns, but they should by no means be a central mechanic of the game.

What you are suggesting, simply keeping all the units more or less balanced, but giving them names and individual stats and back stories does nothing to improve the gameplay. It can make the game more interesting and appealing to those willing to read all the story bits or care about the individual units, but as a player I would probably ignore all of this as window dressing and focus on the meat: the RTS gameplay.

Now, if you had permadeath of units, as people are suggesting, but unlimited unit creation, it would serve even less purpose. If you had permadeath but no new unit creation on the field (ala Ground Control), it would serve the purpose of letting the player know that they have to care about these people, and protect their lives.

[hatu]

Good topic.

I was thinking about a game that would have mostly rogue-like characters that have a little backstory when you recruit them but their main story would come from how you play with them.

If they die, the player shouldn't feel like they're missing out on content, it's part of that characters story now.

The story would be mainly about the group and not tied as much to individuals.

Is Dwarf Fortress like this? I need to play that.

[SirNiko]

Good topic.

I was thinking about a game that would have mostly rogue-like characters that have a little backstory when you recruit them but their main story would come from how you play with them.

If they die, the player shouldn't feel like they're missing out on content, it's part of that characters story now.

The story would be mainly about the group and not tied as much to individuals.

Is Dwarf Fortress like this? I need to play that.

You could do a game that's mapped out sort of like Wario Land 2. You haven't played that? Go do that, and come back.

You have several branching points where the death of key characters leads to different cutscenes (and matching combat maps) that work off the remaining heroes. Upon completing the game, you open up the "story map" and can elect to go back and replay battles to unlock different paths, eliminating the stage-by-stage grind. Some paths might be considered "Hard" to unlock, because they require you to keep a specific character alive, or because you have to puzzle out the correct unit conditions to make it happen (For example, and early mission where killing off the princess leads to a short arc where the other heroes go to hell to recover her soul or something).

You'd wind up with a game that doesn't tell a continuous story, but instead follows several possible (sometimes intertwining) timelines involving the same characters and locations.

-SirNiko

[Parthon]

Is Dwarf Fortress like this? I need to play that.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't really have a storyline except what the player creates. The story comes from the events.

But the individual Dwarves have like and dislikes and providing things they like makes them happier which makes them work harder. They also have a mini-log of what's happened to them recently and how they feel in general. The dwarves themselves are quite individual, but not excessively so.