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Let's talk about DEATH! Or Death specifically in #BandOfBlades and Game Design. Cheerful topic I know, but bear with me.
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Death is a touchy subject in games. Folks can get really attached to characters. Why not? They're avatars we use to interact with game worlds. Being invested in the person and the story is a big deal. I get it! But death is a big part of war stories.
So how to deal with this in games? Some games let you die, but make it trivial to come back. Others tell you it can happen, but make it super unlikely. Some just don't deal with the subject at all! But in military fiction, you can't really avoid the topic.
We decided early on that #BandOfBlades isn't a game about prophesied heroes. It's not a game about destiny and plot armor. Sometimes people die heroically. Other times it's a shitty unexpected end on a battlefield because of bad luck. Sometimes they live despite the odds.
First we looked at what makes death significant. Lose enough soldiers and you can't continue—you lose the game. Lose too many, and morale tanks. The Legion has trouble getting things done. Soldiers fight and bicker in camp, steal and desert.
Death is also an emotional thing. There are remembrances for the fallen built into back-at-camp scenes. Connections to past Legionnaires and their history in Tales. We try to make space for the beats where people are remembered and talked about even after they pass.
We also have to think about what makes the game fun, and how to keep things moving despite death. One of the worst experiences is losing a character mid-session and having to sit bored. We solved this with squad-members. Most missions deploy with a few extra Legionnaires on-hand.
If you go down, just grab a rookie sheet, flesh out someone in the squad—and you're good to go. You're back in the game engaged and mixing it up with everyone else! This also meant we had to get the character creation super streamlined. I'll talk more about heritages another day.
We made a LOT of characters testing this. >_> At this point I think I make a sheet in under 30 seconds, though I've seen many complete strangers to the game make something in under 5 minutes.
Since you often play different specialists and Legionnaires on missions, your only true and constant character (as a player) is one of the command staff. Part of being in a unit is being part of something larger. This isn't a story of a single individual, but of the Legion.
There's probably another thread here to talk about combat, FitD resistance mechanics, primary vs secondary missions in terms of costs ... but we'll save that for tomorrow. Hope I haven't scared folks off with long threads. ^_~ Here's more sweet Michaela art if you stuck it out. 
