This article actually started as one of our RPG Dot retrospectives. I was considering which game to talk about, the front runners being Wasteland and Doomdark's Revenge. Then I started to think about what it was in each of these games that I liked.
It was death. Or rather, the treatment of death in each game. In both of these games, death is permanent and irreversible. In Wasteland, you are quite likely to finish the game with a completely different group than the one which started it. In Doomdark's Revenge, most of the lords can die in battle without you losing the game. Lose the main characters though, and it's all over. Victory to the Heartstealer! You could play these games over and over, because a very different group dynamic would emerge each time.
In too many RPGs, old and new, death is treated as something of an inconvenience, like a cold. Except not as bad as a cold, since you can wander to the nearest temple and get an instant cure. If only I could do that when I have the sniffles.
Death is a difficult thing to balance in any game, never mind an RPG. Players don't like having to start a mission from scratch just because of one mishap. In Diablo II for example, no one likes having to go through the whole level just because you died to the boss at the end of it. Then again, level bosses are terribly unbalanced, and always have been, ever since the early days of arcade games. Permanent death can be a real turn-off, after all, the argument goes, if we wanted realism, would we be playing computer games?
The answer is death that is balanced. Death as a minor illness just doesn't wash with me. I remember playing the Bard's Tale III, and having my wizards at the back ordered to cast their combo resurrect/full health spells on the fighters at the front, anticipating their death in the round of combat. Or even the more recent Baldur's Gate, where the rather shocking game balance, combined with the save anywhere function, meant that you literally saved the game every 10 metres of walking, since you never knew what lay around the corner. Oh look! 3 Black Talon Elite with ice arrows And me at level 2! Ouch, I'm dead! Reload. Try again.
You might now be wondering why I'm bringing Baldur's Gate into this. After all, death, when it happens to your main character, is the end. That should be good, right?
Well, not necessarily. You see, as with everything else in a game, death is all about balance. The necessary balance changes from game to game, but death is always an important part of this.
I prefer in general to stay away from games where death is meaningless, since you never really get into your character. They become just a vehicle for you, gathering the best equipment, killing the biggest monsters, they have no personality, no purpose. Everquest and non-hardcore Diablo II are two good examples of this. Loot gathering as a prime focus is fine until you lose interest. Once you lose interest the game will never be played again, since there is nothing else to these games. Would Diablo II have been as popular if then only play mode available, online or offline, was hardcore? We'll never know.
On the other hand, I didn't like the Baldur's Gate approach. Or rather, I liked the approach, but not the implementation. It was quite possible to walk into encounters that you had no hope of surviving- game over. Restore from save and try again. The save anywhere and game ending death were so closely linked that the designers were able to get away with some shocking imbalances. I would have preferred a more balanced game with a restricted save. The argument against restricted saves is that it forces players to complete sections over and over, but in Baldur's Gate, you had to do this anyway, trying the same fight time after time, until you got that lucky break. Or decided to wander elsewhere.
The key in all these cases is game balance. Regardless of which approach the designers take, death has to be balanced as part of the overall game. For MMORPGs this is perhaps trickier, since death can occur due to circumstances beyond a player's control, such as lag. It is this, and the ever-present grief players, that lead me away from thinking perma-death would be right for MMORPGs are they are today. Though if unlimited resurrection is the way, then hard level limits, and levels themselves, should really go. There is little point in having a ceiling for advancement I these games because everyone will get there, sooner or later, it's just a matter of time. Skill based advancements are better, since these also allow players to give their characters real personality, becoming Master Smith Champion Archer Jenna, instead of Sorcerer 56 Jenna with all the best items. If you decide to pursue swordplay over magecraft, you should still have the option of learning both later, if you put the time in. After all, isn't that what these games are all about?
So what, you may be asking, would I like to see? Well, I don't mind the Baldur's Gate approach in principle, and I did enjoy playing the game, in spite of a few disagreement I may have with the design. I do not like the resurrect anywhere features of many games. I prefer ensemble RPGs, and I don't mind having death be a permanent thing. The game doesn't end just because you lose 2 out of 5 team members in a fierce shoot-out. You recruit 2 more, and gradually they integrate with the rest of your team. With permanent death you take more care, consider the options, and give a damn when a character dies, because they won't be coming back. That's realism enough for me
