Cheating death

[Viper]

OK, so this is kind of revisiting an old topic, and in the context of this thread I think we can talk about player death in general. Personally, I have trouble killing characters... it's not such a problem in something like D&D what with resurrection and raising, but BW can be insanely fatal. I was trying to think of ways that would allow me to cut loose as a GM, while still giving the player an option to save the character if he really, really wanted to. we all know about will to live, but what about something more spectacular? I was just toying around with the idea in my head, and here's what I came up with.

If a character takes a mortal wound, or higher, he can opt to cheat death. To do so, he must dump ALL of his artha AND have a minimum of one point in each type. The character still takes the wound, but it counts as a traumatic wound. If possible, the character must narrate his character's demise in an ambiguous way. For example, Alric is battling the dark lord Murgan atop the black tower of Nur. Murgan gets a lucky blow and scores a mortal wound on Alric. Alric chooses to cheat death. He dumps all his artha, and narrates the following: staggering back from the dark lord's mighty blow, Alric falls from the parapets of Nur. Miraculously surviving the fall, he uses the last of his strength to crawl to relative safety.

The character still must recover the traumatic wound as normal, and I'd even impose some traits like horrible scars or missing body parts... maybe with a roll on a variant of the orc brutal life table. Essentially, the player shelves the character for a time, and can only bring him back onece he's recovered.

I think it can also set up cool campaign moments... like having characters who have cheated death show up at critical plot points. "You! I thought you were dead!"

(this can also be used to save your favorite villians from those pesky PCs, and ensure that they will return to plague the little bastards at some later point- and you wouldn't even have to listen to the players groan, because they are allowed to do the same thing!)

Well, that's my idea. Any thoughts?

[jc_madden]

I like it, but it is it me or is 1 pt. of each artha a little too leniant? Don't know about you but it doesn't seem hard to rack that up. Also I'd have to say definately this is a once per character's life time thing, I mean we don't want them comming back with the Steven Segal trait do we? (hello gurps, heheheh) But actuall hmm I would make it a one time call on trait (Hard to Kill, Die Hard, etc...) be perchased to even allow it's use. (could be possibly awarded after narrowly escaping death through normal circumstance?)

[Verrain]

So basically its like that Will to Live mechanics only you pay more Artha and get a little more life back in you to possibly limp away.

I suppose it has possiblities. Since you lose all Artha and have to have one of each type you limit its use. My main concern is that for many characters a traumatic wound would still be incapacitating and thus Cheating Death would not be much more helpful than Will To Live.

[luke]

I Rich, I think this thread (http://burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=385&highlight=complications) will interest you.

It's been polished up and put in the revision, so it's canon law now.

-L

[Kublai]

I would agree with Abzu that what you are talking about, Viper, is very much a complication. I wouldn't want to charge more Artha than a Will to Live cost, as basically it's the same thing, just much more dramatic!

[Viper]

Ah cool, I hadn't read that thread... yeah, that's pretty much what I was talking about.

perhaps dumping all your artha is a little extreme, but I wanted to represent it as a last ditch effort- a combination of personal aptitude (your persona and deeds) and just blind luck (your fate) combining at the perfect moment to save your ass. I wasn't envisioning the character just buying a little time - by cheating death he absolutely survives/escapes, but he still has to heal, thus taking the character out of the picture for a while.

It's academic at this point, since complications seem to address what I was trying to put forth.

[eruditus]

I like the idea of having a trait as well (I LOVE THE COMLICATION RULES). Basically building a character with an innate "emergency out."

I will post some ideas later today (I have a arena fight to ref).

[Kaare Berg]

A concrete example of a complication.

The heroes are fighting a stone trolls on a narrow ledge. They unleash an avalanche. Liam the Ranger delays the troll but is caught in the same torrent of snow. He fails his roll to hold on and is about to hurtle over the edge to his doom.
A point of persona is paid.
Liam finds something to hold on to. When the snow stops falling he finds that he is actually holding on to the trolls arm, and both of them are dangling over the crevasse.
What do you do?

It took Liam some more artha and some great rolls to get out of it.

Like most things in BW Complication takes the responsiblility for the character and puts it firmly in the players hands.