I know many of you will consider me a wimp, but I don’t like killing off player-characters. On the other hand I’ve learned it’s not good to fudge things in a game, and that you should really let the ‘dice fall as they may’. This has led me – and others too -  to create house rules to increase character survivability: maxing out starting hps, various systems for what happens when you reach 0 hps, starting characters at 2nd or 3rd level, and so on.

So, I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate II recently (gotta love GOG.com), which uses save points to get round this problem. If you lose a character you like, or you find yourself up against something you can’t handle, you rewind and get to start again from an earlier point. And it’s made me wonder, what if I used that in my campaign? I can see all kinds of implications, the main one being that I can run a no-holds barred open sandbox type game, because if players wander off somewhere they shouldn’t, they have a safety net. I can let the dice fall as they may, and not worry about deadly traps and save or die saving throws. This feels very liberating! On the other hand, it removes the risk of character death, which will reduce the feeling of immersion… but then I do get immersed in computer rpgs like Baldur’s Gate and FFVII, so maybe it’s less of an issue than I think.

Which leads me (finally) to the point of this post. Has anybody run or played in a tabletop rpg like this? If so, what was it like? Please try and be open-minded about this in your responses , I’m not looking to start a fight here, I’m genuinely interested in what the ups and downs of such a system would be.

So Wimpy McWimpsalot, what's your deal with not whacking PCs?

I hate killing PCs in games with complicated chargen. I have very little problem slaughtering D&D characters because Raise Dead exists in the game. More problematic is that cool Shadowrun PC who just gets into a bad run of dice tosses.

Fate Points work great in Warhammer. I've brought them into other RPGs. But I can't imagine either myself or my players would be okay with Save Points or Rewinding the game because it would seriously yank me out of immersion.

Quote from: Glazer;538790Which leads me (finally) to the point of this post. Has anybody run or played in a tabletop rpg like this? If so, what was it like? Please try and be open-minded about this in your responses , I'm not looking to start a fight here, I'm genuinely interested in what the ups and downs of such a system would be.

I think you'd need a setting that implicitly supports this - like, say, the EVE RPG that never was.

Rune has a character backup mechanic though, as does Car Wars (Clone memories). You character dies; you just have another copy on ice. It could work in any sci-fi setting, especially post-singularity (aka Nerd Rapture) if brain-computer downloading is possible.

But a computer game-esque save point mechanic won't work in a TRPG, because going back is simply so much more involved and it means six people have to do all that game again, rather than just one.

Clearly one solution is simply to borrow Spinachat's viking hat And, seriously, I accept that I may be over-thinking this.

Quote from: Ladybird;538798But a computer game-esque save point mechanic won't work in a TRPG, because going back is simply so much more involved and it means six people have to do all that game again, rather than just one.

Sorry, my bad. The idea is more like a FFVII type of mechanic. Basically:

1. Characters reduced to 0 hp are knocked out. They can be revived after the combat and will recover with 1hp.

2. In the case of a TPK, it's 'game over' and you revert to the last save point.

To put things in context, this will be part of an open-table megadungeon based game (see http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1223/roleplaying-games/opening-your-game-table), and the 'last save point' will be back at the tavern before the dungeon trip began.

Quote from: Glazer;538800Sorry, my bad. The idea is more like a FFVII type of mechanic. Basically:

1. Characters reduced to 0 hp are knocked out. They can be revived after the combat and will recover with 1hp.

2. In the case of a TPK, it's 'game over' and you revert to the last save point.

Ah.

So, the first one works simply by making the combat less lethal, although I'd add a "if you are on 0HP, someone can kill you by saying they kill you" mechanic (Because the players will be wanting to do this to monsters they encounter, and fair is fair).

For the second one... which Wizard / Cleric duo are they employing to rezcue (Not a spelling mistake) them from the dungeon, then? There could easily be a ritual that does that, to make the concept explainable in-setting. Doing it this way also means you aren't rewinding time; everything they've done "counts".

Or you could have them send homonculi into the dungeon, while the real adventurers wait above and re-merge after the homonculii return... if they return.

Quote from: Ladybird;538803For the second one... which Wizard / Cleric duo are they employing to rezcue (Not a spelling mistake) them from the dungeon, then? There could easily be a ritual that does that, to make the concept explainable in-setting. Doing it this way also means you aren't rewinding time; everything they've done "counts".

I quite like this idea, mainly because it saves me having to 'restock' the areas they cleared during the expedition.

Quote from: Glazer;538844I quite like this idea, mainly because it saves me having to 'restock' the areas they cleared during the expedition.

You know, if I was being employed to do that, I'd want some recompense; at least one share of treasure and XP (Each, because my cleric buddy is there too). Plus expenses.