How to tell a story if the protagonists can die in the campaign progress?

[Undeceived 392]

Hello. :)

I would like to know what you (from a player's perspective) think about this because so far I have no perfect solution for this "problem".

In a campaign (WIP) I have some protagonists that go together through the story I'm telling. But the problem is that between the situations where I develop the story (e.g. friendships), these protagonists can die, because e.g. the player didn't take enough care as group commander. But if they die, I can't use them anymore to tell continue telling the story, as they're gone.

I think that the best example of this dilemma is the PMC campaign. BI solved this problem by making the protagonists of the story invincible (they could not die). This way the devs could continue elaborating their story throughout the campaign and the characters always were there, but I read that many players didn't like this solution.

But now I'm in the same situation as BI was back then. And the thing is that I would say that the protagonists in my campaign are even more highlighted than the characters of PMC (by this I mean: The story has a strong focus on the relationships and friendships between the characters - with the goal that they really become important for the player).

I know that many players (me included) will automatically load the last saved game when a group member dies because they want to play it "perfectly", without losing squad mates. But nevertheless from a mission designing point of view there should be a solution for the case that the player continues the mission even if squad members die.

Therefor I would like to know what you think about this matter.

What would you as a player prefer (or accept) to experience when playing such a campaign?

1. God mode like in PMC:

The important members of your group (the ones who are used for the story, e.g. close friends) won't die, even when taking enemy bullets.

2. When they die: Mission failed, load last save:

When an important character dies, a small cutscene appears (e.g.: Player character says: "Oh no!! He died!! Dammit!" and the camera shows the dead friend) and the player has to load the last saved game. Be advised here that it would rather be a dramatic event than an abrupt screen showing "MISSION FAILED!". ;) Something like this is contained in my mission FTLOAF (see sig).

3. The important character is automatically back (alive) in the next story development:

Even if the close friend dies, nothing will happen and in the next story situation (e.g. in the cutscene after the current mission) he will be there like if nothing had happened.

4. Other (please explain your idea)

Thanks a lot for your input! :)

[dragon01 902]

I think that you could try to combine them and vary from mission to mission. For instance, if there's a big, unavoidable firefight that the player would have to focus on in order to survive, you could make his teammates invulnerable. Not many people should notice. On the other hand, for most time, I think that "mission failed if a teammate dies" is a good idea. Make sure to make it logical, so that everybody would have some necessary skill to complete the mission and losing even one of them would prevent you from carrying it out anyway. Most of the time, making a dead person magically alive by the time of the next mission seems like a scripting oversight.

[gammadust 12]

Voted 4.

Added work not withstanding, i would only send a player to a "Mission Failed" screen in case he himself dies, and rather include some alternate path for player (now alone) to join the story thread back together and still finnish the mission.

If the protagonist (not player) is absolutely essential for the mission to be accomplished (ex. being a sapper or something the player cannot achieve himself, not having access to required weapons or tools) a possibility would be for an extraction be mandatory and instead of restart from save, mission would restart from base with a reinforcement soldier.

IDK, all options are immersion breaking, but if story must prevail above all else, i would try figuring a way not to break it.

[NoRailgunner 0]

What about letting those friend characters die a little bit slower just with more crying and calling for help?

Just make sure that the player knows from start of the campaign that he will need his friends badly. So he thinks twice about finishing missions/duty as Elite Rambo. Force the player to take care of his team + equipment eg no auto-resupply at mission end/start, no dirtymagic tricks aka invincible/reincarnation, *bam* mission reload....

[max power 21]

I guess it depends on how close the protagonist is fighting alongside his friends. In OFP, it was fairly difficult to tell which ones were which. They frequently died but the story would just assume they didn't. You could go one step further and just not have them present when they don't need to be. For the times they are right with you, I think you can test having them with high hitpoints and with the first aid module. Maybe you or someone can make a main character first aid module where your guys almost never die from their wounds.

[celery 8]

setCaptive true.

[nkenny 1051]

#3 worked for Operation Flashpoint and for good reason.

Without a 'rooster' of characters like Rainbow6, or some similar game mechanic to limit/control which characters are available, a mission creator would have to produce near infinite variation of missions. There are no such mechanics pre-built neither Arma2 nor Operation Flashpoint.

As you note invincible characters or forced reloading quickly becomes annoying.

-k

edit: #3. Total brainfart. Thanks Undeceived.

Edited February 18, 2012 by NkEnNy

[Undeceived 392]

Thanks a lot for your ideas so far! To be honest I didn't expect such good points and they will certainly help a lot (in combination too). :)

#4 worked for Operation Flashpoint and for good reason.

Without a 'rooster' of characters like Rainbow6, or some similar game mechanic to limit/control which characters are available, a mission creator would have to produce near infinite variation of missions. There are no such mechanics pre-built neither Arma2 nor Operation Flashpoint.

As you note invincible characters or forced reloading quickly becomes annoying.

-k

I think you meant #3, right?

You're right, it's not possible to make this infinite mission variation for every case. It'd be quite hard story-wise too (to tell 100 different stories for each situation :D ).

Edited February 18, 2012 by Undeceived

[SaOk 112]

I voted #3, but the other options are good sometimes too. The most important is that the playing feels fun without baby sitting dummy dynamite (like in official ArmA2 campaign). The #2 is fitting only if the character can only die from player´s long failing. E.g. enemy breaking through defenses to sneak into HQ building.

[kireta21 13]

System similar to Gamebryo's "essential" status might work. If important NPC gets killed, he could be automatically revived wounded/incapacitated via script.

While such NPC would be essentialy immortal, it won't give player any advantage like allowdamage=0 or setcaptive=1 would give. In fact, from player's point of view it would work similar to BIS first aid module

[edit]

Found it, it was Broken Arrow campaign

Edited February 18, 2012 by boota

[Wolfrug 0]

This is a problem I myself have also struggled with, and there's hardly a single easy answer. Switching around different methods is not the best way (e.g. invulnerable in one mission, game over in another) since that just makes the player frustrated with having to guess whether they're supposed to be protecting their friends or not. I often had this problem in Skyrim for instance - sometimes you escorted someone who was invulnerable, and sometimes someone who wasn't, and there was just no way of telling. On the other hand, if the player is in a mission where they can't control their friends (e.g. they're not the team leader) then having a "game over" type thing appearing will just be incredibly frustrating all the time, since the AI commanders are notoriously suicidal/careless with the lives of their underlings - it will feel like the player can't really stop game over from happening, no matter what they do.

A solution that might work in this context and which, more importantly, could stay the same throughout, would be to introduce a new intermediate form between 'living' and 'dead'. This of course depends on how many essential NPCs you're going to have (if everyone in your group is essential, it would quickly become kinda dumb, but with one or two it might work). Basically, it would work like this:

Friend is hurt, knocked down, crying for help (standard BIS first aid stuff) -> You find and heal friend, he's up and fighting again, no harm no foul.

Friend is knocked down, but you don't help him in time/he gets shot even more -> Friend is now incapacitated (not dead!) and no longer any good in a fight. Depending on how you could script it and on the demands of the mission, there could be various dynamic objectives here: get friend to medevac. Get friend with you to the end of the mission. Leave friend behind for "other friendly medics" to take care of. Etc.

The good thing with this system is that you won't have an invulnerable teammember with you, nor a glass cannon that will fuck the mission up through no fault of your own all the time by dying (e.g. Harvest Red). This way, you can still bring your friends and make them useful, but if you screw up or get unlucky, you'll have a liability on your hands (just like in real life!). The further good thing is that you could script this liability based on your needs. Say it's one of those big battle missions that you're supposed to win in order to continue the story, and your pal gets shot down - in this case, just leaving him there is fine, since there'll be medics along to pick up the casualties. What if it's the opposite, and you're retreating? Well, then you might have to pick him up/get him evacuated some other way to be able to finish the mission (Leave No Man Behind!).

The bad thing with this system is that it'd be a bitch to script, and you'd have to be very careful with giving briefings to make sure that it's clear what happens to casualties (i.e. teaching the player how it works).

Good luck!

Wolfrug out.

[Trapper 0]

#4 Other

There could be a relative realistic approach, which requires much thought of the creator the longer the campaign is and the more detailed characters are involved.

But it would create a subtle way of punishment for bad player performance.

if !alive characterX then {remove characterX from outro}

if !alive characterX for the first time and alive characterY then {characterY comment on characterX's death after main outro}

if !alive characterX for the first time and !alive characterY then {player comment on characterX's death after main outro}

if regular army and connected supply lines then {reinforce characterX by anonymous new guy which won't do much of talking anymore or just say anonymous trivial lines every now and then}

if impossible to reinforce then {don't}

if !alive more and more of story comrades then {their required cut scene lines will be told in a sad kind of diary monologues by the growing lonely player; more trivial lines just vanish with them}

Overall the story script could easily become the real heart of the campaign project.

You would have to use the real campaign structure to assist you, not a big single mission. Passing character status variables from mission to mission. It would offer Y-links to mission versions a) or b) adapting to character's death if you like.

That would even allow you to let the player run into a campaign dead end when e.g. his only pilot died three missions before because the player could change history by reverting the campaign to the mission to keep his pilot alive this time.

[Treelor 0]

I would have some different branches at that point depending on who died in the mission (and fail the mission if more than one died, obviously). Its a lot of work, but allows you as a writer to really explore the character you've developed. It also adds a lot of replayability for your audience, as we'll then have a good reason to revert back to that point and try letting someone else die.