PLAYER-CHARACTER DEATH IN RPGS:
Meet Ball Bearing. A halfling priest of St Slim: godling of travel, song, and tight spaces. He died in the second session.
His companion, @PrismaticWastes 's wizard, was paralyzed by slimes. Ball Bearing prayed to St Slim to intervene.
1/
Ball Bearing prayed so hard he exploded.
It's a thing, in @yungdumbitch 's Errant ruleset. Zealot characters can call on their god for miracles, but there's always a chance they roll the "Apotheosis" result:
2/
"Your body erupts, giving birth to a physical manifestation of your covenant; an avatar of a deity, or belief otherwise made manifest. You are dead."
3/
Death by roll of the dice is a part of old-school-style RPGs. Because:
(a) player-characters are pretty ordinary; and
(b) you only make dice rolls in risky situations, and dice-result tables reflect that.
So: Ball Bearing now stained the walls and ceiling of the cavern.
4/
In his place: a singing, shining figure of indeterminate gender, wearing slippers, a sarong.
This was St Slim. St Slim is a chill god; he fills creatures that meet him with a sense of peace. He + his entourage of stoner kobolds have been a faction our dungeon campaign since.
5/
Meanwhile: I had another roll to make.
Ball Bearing had called St Slim to rescue his friend, @PrismaticWastes 's buff-but-currently-paralyzed wizard. But would St Slim do so? Or would his divine manifestation leave no survivors.
I rolled 2d6, my miracle dice, once more.
6/
St Slim touched @PrismaticWastes 's Benvolio (the wizard)- freeing him, closing his wounds, delivering him from darkness.
Benvolio, witness to divinity, devoted to St Slim, now delves dungeons barechested in sarong.
7/
My first dice roll, the one to which Ball Bearing died- pretty neat!
I mean: considering all the ways dungeon-crawling PCs can die, this was a pretty metal way to go.
8/
My second dice roll- now, *this* was the important roll, for me.
*Everything* rode on this roll. Would Ball Bearing's act save his friend? Would stories of his god's appearance be told, or would that apotheosis go unnoticed, witnessed by none but invertebrate slimes?
9/
Ball Bearing's death was the most fun I had in RPGs, recently.
Possible because:
(a) we were playing an old-school game. Players leaned into that;
(b) @yungdumbitch 's GM-ing, collaborative in the sense that she was always as surprised as us, at how things turn out;
And:
10/
Arguably the most important bit:
(c) the sense that what drove this group of people having fun together was -above the Rules or System or Consequences or Story- everybody's care for everybody else's sense of fun.
High-trust RPG play = best RPG play.
11/11
Damn, glossed over something crucial:
The *reason* why that 2nd roll -to save Benvolio- was such a moment for me. There was a chance I could fail. We could've both perished, nobly but unknown.
It wouldn't have been a moment if Ava had just handed that to us.
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