1d12 Things to do in Your Moment of Death When All Hope is Lost.

Your luck (and HP) just ran out. You're facing the firing squad, looking down the shaft of an arrow, whatever. You've got maybe a few precious seconds. Roll 1d12. (or choose, if that suits you better.) 

1d12 Things to do in Your Moment of Death When All Hope is Lost.

1. Recite an impassioned plea to your god. Ask them to save your body or your soul. Ask them to ferry you to the afterlife. Ask for them to strike down your enemies.
2. One last merciless attack. Fire your weapon. Throw a spear. Swing your axe. It hits, of course. Hell, it crits. Whatever you hit dies, or stumbles, or bleeds, or something at least. Maybe you scar the daemon. Maybe you just impress it.
3. Use a forbidden art or spell. Call on hell itself to avenge you. Devour part of the world's soul for a last gasp of power. Turn back time, split the atom, possess a new body, become a lich. Any transgression is acceptable, given the alternative.
4. Intentionally misuse a powerful item. Release the monstrous soul bound in your sword. Drink every potion in your collection. Tear up an infernal contract. Cross the streams. Put a portable hole in a bag of holding. Why not?
5. Summon something unspeakably dangerous. Speak a name thrice. Call in an airstrike on your coordinates. Release the collar on your bound elemental.
6. Perform one last feat of strength or skill. Throw the lich's phylactery across the chasm to the cleric. Hold up the collapsing ceiling. Lift the portcullis, or just tear it apart. If the character could conceivably do it with a skill check, just assume they (critically) succeed.
7. Deliver a final speech or some last words. Denounce your killers. Give a wordless cry of defiance. Become a martyr. Maybe you'll get your last words tattooed on a bicep or two.
8. Reveal a deadly secret. Let the town square know who funded the bandits. Livetweet the nuclear launch codes. Speak the true name of a king, or a god.
9. Challenge the reaper for your soul. They'll probably demand a price if you lose, but it's not like there's anything worse than death, right?
10. Kill your psychopomp. Better hope it's something like a giant beetle or a horsebound warrior, and not your god showing up in person. If nothing takes your soul, maybe you can stick around for a while longer, at least until backup comes looking for a delivery receipt.
11. Hold on just a minute longer. You can't die yet. People are counting on you. Once you've held the line and saved the innocents, then you can rest.
12. Straight up refuse to die. Refuse to abandon your body. Force your soul back into a rapidly decaying meat suit. Eke out a few more days, weeks, months. Years. Anything.

Lethality Paradox Part 2: Death Moves

For part 2, I'm living up to my first post and shamelessly riding on the backs of more established authors. In this case, I'm riding on the back of Grim World from Boldly Games and their frankly excellent 'Death Moves.'

For those not in the know on Powered by the Apocalypse (and the original game Apocalypse World), a 'Move' is an action a player or GM makes when something occurs in the narrative. A basic 'Hack and Slash' attack Move in Dungeon World starts as "When you attack an enemy in melee," and then throws out how you roll dice and confirm successes.

By extension, a 'Death Move' is something that happens on a death, and the Grim World crew absolutely nailed it. A Skirmisher's last action is a spear throw that legends will speak of. A Necromancer's last breath unseals a relentless army of the undead. The death of a Battlemaster is merely the next step in a lifetime-long gambit.

While I'm singing Grim World's praises, they've also got Death Moves for other PbtA games like the base Dungeon World classes and Inverse World. Examples include Adrien Thoen's Fae pronouncing a bitter curse or perfect wish upon 'a land, a people, or an individual,' or the Golem of Inverse World having a 60 second countdown followed by a catastrophic core meltdown & explosion.

Maybe other systems call it something else, or it's considered a 'ruling' and not a 'rule' for most OSR players. Whatever. Let's use Death Moves a ton more in anything even vaguely resembling a heroic narrative. Your gritty funnels and Torchbearer cavern crawls can have PCs choking to death on their own blood, but if you're the chosen of an elder god, you get to go out in style.

Coming soon: 1d20 Things to do in Your Moment of Death When All Hope is Lost.
EDIT:  Find 1d12 Things to do in Your Moment of Death When All Hope is Lost HERE.

Build in the suggestions from the previous post to try and make a Death Move an active choice by the player. What if their last action undoes all the good they did up to that point? Is it worth rejecting a death saving throw (or equivalent) in order to use a Death Move? Mix carefully, and running out of HP might be viewed as a role-playing opportunity rather than an abrupt end to a promising character.

Lethality Paradox Part 1: A Worse Fate

How to approach character death is a universal problem seen by game designers the world over. The issue is usually thus:

1. I want to make death a constant and present threat so that players are cautious and deliberate.
2. I don't want to kill off characters my players are invested in and then have to spend minutes or hours making new characters instead of playing.

A 'solution' I have seen (and one I have used myself) is to make death SEEM constant and terrifying, but actually have it be rare and unlikely. This is a bad solution. It's not good. Don't do it. One day the players will see behind the curtain and their whole experience will be ruined.

Instead, I ask a simple question. Well, a few questions.

What is worse than death?

1. What, to a player, is more challenging than rolling a new character?

Roll up a table of hit locations. Hell, here's a simple one (thanks Nemesis!)

1 Left Leg    2 Right Leg    3-4 Left Arm    5-6 Right Arm    7-9 Torso    10 Head

When a player character (PC) runs out of hit points and would 'die,' instead roll a ten-sided die (1d10). You'll get a hit location. Hurt them there. Right arm? Break their sword. Torso? Tear open their backpack and smash all their potions & scrolls. Head? Take one of their eyes. Left leg? Chop it off at the knee. Pick something narrative-appropriate, and don't use it too often.

2. What, to the character, is more confronting than mere death?

This is, to me at least, the fun one. It's also got more potential to backfire, since it requires you (usually) to forgo a mechanical penalty in favour of a narrative one. In some cases, you might even give a mechanical bonus to a character who in traditional rules should be dead. Handle with care.

A holy man, fallen in battle. Their god abandons their spirit, and so a passing devil offers them a return to life. A proud shepherd of the forest, their wounds stitched by cold steel and factory-spun thread. A death curse that can't be dodged, but can be redirected onto a blood relative. Make your players (and by extension, their characters) choose a fate that, to them, may be worse than death.

Recommended Reading

I wouldn't be a real writer if I didn't try to piggyback off people more talented than me, so without further ado here are the real geniuses you should be checking out.

Against the Wicked City:
Joseph Manola
http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/

I can't put it any better than the author did: "Romantic clockpunk fantasy OSR gaming in a vaguely Central Asian setting. May feature killer robots." Full of excellent design principles, unique classes, creative rewrites of published settings, and a bunch of immediately usable setting material for The Great Road and the Wicked City. So good, I'm running it pretty much as-written as a campaign myself, and my (new) players are loving it.

Goblin Punch:
Arnold Kemp
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/

Full of bizarre monsters, bizarre art, and creative worldbuilding, Goblin Punch is a must-visit for anyone keen on OSR gaming. At the very least, Microbiologist Azathoth or False Hydras will spark your imagination. At the best, you'll immediately fall in love with Centerra (as I did) and want to explore every inch of it.

False Machine:
Patrick Stuart
http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/

I'm going to be honest, this one got a recommendation based on team efforts with Scrap Princess over at Monster Manual Sewn From Pants. Specifically, the incredible source of terrified wondrous nightmares that is Veins of the Earth. If you feel like your players aren't having enough nightmares, check out their collaborative projects which also include Fire on the Velvet Horizon and Deep Carbon Observatory.

A Beginning

Welcome to Take Up Our Quarrel, an interactive multimedia experience dedicated to original RPG materials, unoriginal RPG materials, and the author's recommendations for you to read & support other writers instead.

The title of the blog is a reference to John McRae's 1915 poem In Flanders Fields, a reference that'll hold a lot more meaning to modern history enthusiasts that live in the former British Empire. How is it relevant to the theme of the blog? I'm not entirely sure.

...Well, that's a lie. My main interest has always been more OSR than Pathfinder, and the idea of generations being drawn to spill their blood by the grudges of the past they are haunted by? Very, very OSR.

Stick around for horror-themed musings, discussion of horror materials, and maybe an occasional post that's actually worth reading.