What Does "Old School" Gaming Even Mean? (Part 4) Yes, Characters Can DIE.

 

Hey there, Old School Gamers!

The picture today is a coffin because today's episode is about death. Part 4 of our series about "What Even Is Old School Gaming?" is titled Yes, Characters Could Actually Die in Old School.

This topic here, Part 4, is going to continue into the next two episodes with some points that I think should be expanded into their own topics. Part 5 will be about monsters being nerfed these days. Part 6 will be about how NPCs have been nerfed.

So as far as Part 4: Death goes, yes, in the olden school days characters could and often did die. Now, just because they died often doesn't mean they stayed permadead. It is a fantasy game after all. So, it was fairly easy to get your character back, and characters came back almost as often as they died. It was a rare occasion that a character became permadead usually simply because the character died and the player was through with that character and didn't actually want them back.

What this did for the game is that it gave the game stakes. It gave the game an element of risk. It gave the game consequences for stupid, un-thought-out behavior. And sometimes it just provided that element of chance that games need to be games.

It added to the feel and flavor that these fantasy worlds that we play D&D in or Pathfinder in or OSE in or whatever our favorite game engine is,  it added to the idea that these worlds were dangerous with jungles filled with poisonous creatures, with muggers and thugs in the alleys of cities, with bandits and monsters that could attack you along the road in the trackless wilderness between cities.

Now, I like to quote Gary Gygax who said that there is no right or wrong way to play these games. So maybe you're not into a game that is realistic enough to have death come up a lot. I mean there are swords swinging, and daggers stabbing, and people blasting energies like fire and lightning from their hands. There are creatures like dragons and dinosaurs and vampires around. But, hey, if you don't think there would be a lot of death in such a violent world then not having a lot of death could be your playstyle.

I personally feel that if I know that my character can't die, that nothing bad will really ever happen to my character, then that's like going to a bowling alley and playing in an alley that has the bumpers on. At the end of the game, the rewards weren't really earned because there was no risk undertaken in obtaining them.

But what do you think?



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