Life after Death

[Clawlessdragon]

I wanted to get peoples view on player character death & rolling up a new character?
I know this has been considered with the inheritance rules (I think this is the first time I have seen rules in any RPG system that tackles the loss of a character) but it does not go far enough to make up for the loss of all those XP and AP gained so far.
I could go either way on this subject... If you have been playing for a few years, slowly building your skills with the rest of your party and then die. Rolling up a new character is fun (there are so many cool cultures to explore and play) but when joining the old fellowship, the new character will become a hinderance - low weapon skill, low courtesy.. imagine failing that vital encounter, messing it up for the rest of the group... or ending up observing in the game, taking no part as it makes sense for others to make the rolls as they are better skilled in your new skills, not to mention facing the thought of another few game years just to get back to your old level.
There is also the argument, as your character evolves and you become more attached, you are less likely to perform heroic acts for 'fear' of loosing it.
On the other hand, if you could 'port' all those XP & AP gained so far into a new character, so you could quickly boost yourself up to the 'level' of the party - you would become less attached to the chatacter or not care what actions you took or how reckless your actions were. If you died you could fall back to your last 'saved' point (like in a computer game) and continue without fear of consequences.
There are arguments for either side (clearly hot topic in our group recently) I just wanted to see how others handle this in their games... or has nobody died yet

[Otaku-sempai]

A party with mixed experience can be half the fun (and challenge) of the game. Look at the Fellowship: Warriors and adventurers with decades, even centuries, of experience traveling with four sheltered hobbits from the Shire. How less exciting would have been the party's journey through Moria without Pippin's mistake at the well?

[Yusei]

I thought so too, but I have to admit the two inexperienced characters in my groupe sometimes feel useless, and you have to take extra care to include stuff where only they can shine, from time to time. Which may mean bending the rules a little, to prevent the more experienced characters to be better at those tasks.

[Stormcrow]

I think this is the first time I have seen rules in any RPG system that tackles the loss of a character

Just an aside (don't reply to it here): there are many RPGs that deal with character death.

The original D&D allowed you to write a will, leaving your wealth to your next character, minus a tithe, although later editions limited this to once per player.

Fantasy Wargaming let you determine whether you would go to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory (and how long it would take to get to Heaven), and whether you would be sainted. Living clerics could even call on your sainted dead character for miracles. Fate of the Norns: Ragnarock lets you determine whether you got to Valhalla or Hel, and your later characters gain more benefits the more gloriously your earlier characters die.

Rune, based on the video game of the same name, has a rule called Death Insurance: if you pay 25 Victory Points (experience points which you use to buy powers), you get to make an exact copy of your character, minus the name, and if you die you may copy the "save point" onto a new character sheet and begin playing it in the next encounter. You "save your game."

Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet, a game about personal time travel, let you escape death by saying you time-jumped ("spanned") out at the last minute, even though everyone else sees your corpse lying right there. It then becomes part of your required future (your "Yet") that sooner or later you must go back to that spot and die. If you subsequently die somewhere else, you really screw up your timeline and the timelines of everyone involved (you "frag" them), and they're going to have to fix your mess.

None of these are appropriate for The One Ring, of course. The elves' souls go to Mandos to be purged, men's souls leave Arda to go somewhere else, and the dwarves have their own ideas about what happens to them after death. The only (weakly) confirmed report of an elf that returned to Middle-earth after dying is Glorfindel, and he's a bit beyond normal player-character power.

[Angelalex242]

Define 'purged', because it seems to me, from Silmarillion, Mandos can let out pretty much anyone he feels like letting out, as he tells Faenor 'your butt is not getting out ever.' Meaning he probably lets most elves out eventually.

I think, however, it's more reincarnation with elves in Mandos's hall. So dead superelf comes back as superelf born elsewhere.

In this idea, Glorfindel 2.0 is actually the reincarnation of the original.

[Tolwen]

I wanted to get peoples view on player character death & rolling up a new character?
I know this has been considered with the inheritance rules (I think this is the first time I have seen rules in any RPG system that tackles the loss of a character) but it does not go far enough to make up for the loss of all those XP and AP gained so far.

In traditional RPG's with experience levels (e.g. classic DnD), there is an easy solution: The player designs a new character with one or two levels less than that surviving party member with the lowest level. That way, he is at least approximately on par with the rest of the group, while still suffering somewhat from the death of his character.

In principle, something similar can be done in TOR: Design a new character, but with less AP and XP than the lowest surviving character. The measure of this gap is up to the LM of course, but IMO something between 10 to 20% less should be fair; depending on the other circumstances.

Of course, both player and LM have to design the whole character background and at least the rough outline of his previous career.

Cheers
Tolwen

[Jon Hodgson]

Let's not have every thread about rules or play didn't divert off into an argument about minutiae of Middle-earth. I know we all love the minutiae of Middle-earth, but we'd like to keep this forum really friendly to new players, and with the current trend of aggressive point-counterpoint on Tolkien lore I think we risk losing that.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with starting original threads to discuss Tolkien minutiae though, if that's what you'd like to discuss.

I realise such diversions happen very easily, and aren't always unwelcome, but it seems worth taking the time to think about. Thanks! Now back to your scheduled discussion of how to handle character death in The One Ring.

[Sprigg]

I would probably leave it to my players. Most of them would be okay with playing a slightly weaker character if the current one dies, but it would sorta depend on the adventure and events going on at the time.

[Stormcrow]

I don't buy the argument that less experienced characters are useless in this sort of game. Decipher's The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game handled this quite well: hobbits were automatically game-mechanically inferior by others by their very natures, but that didn't stop lots of people from wanting to play them.

Make your new character's relative inexperience a game-hook; make it an important element of the adventure. There may be a very good reason to "trust rather to their friendship than to great wisdom."

[Glorelendil]

In this idea, Glorfindel 2.0 is actually the reincarnation of the original.

My favorite part (read: most amusing) of using this interpretation of the Glorfindel Problem is that nobody in the stories bothers to comment on it. "Yeah, it's Glorfindel; he's back. What about it? You mortals fixate on the oddest things."