Introducing the Deck of Many Deaths

As many of you already know, the death system has been on the docket for major revision for awhile now. Before I get into the changes we've made, here are the goals we had in mind.

A Good Death System Should...

1. ...make players fear death.
2. ...make death interesting.
3. ...control the inflation of PC power.

The fate pool system didn't do a very good job of accomplishing any of these. Players would generally draw a white stone and go on about their business. Once in a very long while, someone would draw red and a death shade would come out. Unfortunately, that was rare, and the encounter was rarely anything to write home about.

The Deck of Many Deaths

The new system, which we've named the Deck of Many Deaths, mimics the infamous Deck of Many Things from D&D. Here's how it works.

• Instead of drawing stones from a bag, you draw a card from the tarot deck, which determines the outcome of your death. For a full list of cards and effects, see the Death section of the game guide.
• Everybody draws from the same deck. Cards are never permanently removed or added. This helps simplify logistics.
• Every draw is bad. No matter which card you draw, it is always detrimental to you, so you'll always want to avoid death. This accomplishes goal #1 of making players fear death.
• Each card has a different effect. You may gain a malady that lasts the remainder of the event, lose treasure on the spot, or even lose skill points (see below). Death may taste bad, but it comes in many perilous flavors to keep things interesting. This accomplishes goal #2 of making death interesting.
• There is no permanent death. In lieu of death shades or instant perming, we've decided to go with skill point loss. Every time you draw the Death card (a 1 in 22 chance), you lose a number of skill points equal to your level. In tandem with character retirement, this accomplishes goal #3 of controlling the inflation of PC power. Remember, losing skill points sucks, but no matter how you slice it, it's not as bad as permanent death.

The Other Side of the Coin

Obviously, mandating that death should be this bad is scary. Hand in hand with that, however, is the fact that, if death is going to be significant, it can't happen to every character multiple times per game. Epic giants can't run ruckshot over town, endless waves of oozes can't decimate the PCs with vicinity effects, and dracoliches can't hold knife fights in phone booths. The plot team is aware of this and wants everyone to know that the difficulty will be more reasonable with this system in place. We'll still let death happen, of course, and there may be times when the PCs are likely to lose for making foolish decisions. Overall, however, the aim will be to make encounters challenging but winnable, to keep the PCs on their toes but not on the constant brink of defeat.