Character Retirement, computer games and roleplay games and mine

 One of the interesting disconnects in C.RPGs is the 'new' character. When a player dies/retires their existing character, and brings in a new 1st level, how the system treats them.

Character "Retirement"

At some point, a character retires, or is forced to retire, or is physically forced to retire (death & no phoenix down). In more classic roleplay games, the player rolls up a new one, comes up with a plausible reason the heroes have taken on this new recruit, and goes on their way.

"Oh, all this time, I've been training this young apprentice, he'll inherit all my worldly worth, and my gear"

Yet in earlier computer games, fueled by 20c coins or quarters, Death was a means by which the owner earned money. So often games were a tad bit harder as the game progressed, players had to improve their concentration skills, memory skills or their wallets if they wanted to keep playing. But it taught us a valuable lesson, skills = reduced cost.

When Computer games dealt with death, they too had ways for the gear to be passed down. Diablo had the gear fall to the ground, to be picked up by the resurrected hero, but rather than having the player start again at 1st level, because there was no incentive for the start-over mechanic of coin-op games, and they were often competing with other games on the market, they needed to have players only temporarily lose equipment, to be pick up at a later point to continue.

Was this new character the resurrected one from before, or just another hero of an almost identical skill set, arriving in town, penniless and desperate to gain wealth.

The Psychological Aftermath

As a result, we have three styles of players in roleplay, one end of the spectrum, typically called rogue-like, mimic the coin-op games style of death = death, start a new character from scratch. This style of retirement based far more on realism, typically has toned down monsters, events and such, where is any given event can kill a player, there should be, or should have been some way out, if only the player was skilled enough.

The other end, more narrative play, has a auto-ressurection like style, when a players character dies, they roll up another, of equal level, gather up their fallen gear and get on with the adventure. The lives of the heroes are quasi-irrelevant, the plot is far more important. As a result, game styles can be far more extreme, more gonzo, more deadly since death is not the end

Then at some middle ground, we have the OSR styled games, death happens, and if you don't have the cash to buy a spell or magical trinket, you start again, new character, or as I started in the first paragraph, players sometimes have squires or apprentices, whom take on their masters role, trying to fit their shoes, so to speak. The concern here is that players sometimes feel trapped in the character or role, as their apprentice can only be a few steps of difference, else the loss in training or gear matching results almost in a whole new character anyway, as per the permadeath option

I have an issue with all three, from the first, we've taken everything away from the player, completely, if the player retires the character at the end of a mission, its as bad as dying, so might as well go out in a blaze of glory which also bleeds into the OSR style. Yet in both narrative and OSR styled games, players wanting to change characters will often suicide them to trigger the new character coming in, with part or all of the levels and gear of the former.

Karma, or How I deal with this

So, what I learned, from my many years of killing off players, so they could try other classes, and players walking away from the table, because their favorite character died when they attempted to fly off a cliff into a dragons mouth, was to award players for playing the character to their fullest.

When a player dies (or retires, see below), I multiply their level by the number of attended sessions, and they receive that much karma.. as a player. The player can use the karma to begin their next character at either a higher level, or with some added bonuses from the backgrounds system, or some physical wealth from their family fortune, or any other number of ways to 'start again, but with more'

A further advantage is, as a GM, having built my world, I can choose to rarify races, setting a karma cost to play something outside the ordinary. If players want something exotic, they need to play first as a standard classic race of the region, then retire them at a village and earn bonus +2 sessions +2 levels for karma purposes, more bonuses for some modifiers. Then they can use the karma to buy in for an exotic race / class / background, and since the GM has chosen these 'prices' they've already factored in the affect this will have on their world and priced accordingly.

Some players, take some disadvantages to their first characters, in order to increase their karma ratings, banking them over several campaigns, so that in some later campaign they can play as some extremely powerful and rare race combo.

I don't see players throwing away characters, they earn more for each session they survive and more for retiring, so its in their best interests to go for as long as they can, and bring their character home safe.

Death is still very real, the loss of the bonus retirement karma is enough to dissuade, and furthermore the gods will halve your karma if you suicide a character. (or commit evil acts too)

GMs can nudge games in ways, by pre-setting karma costs and benefits, without outright denying a player.

Furthermore, if a player plays well enough in one GMs campaign, and another GM has trust in the first GM, their karma can be 'transferred' allowing a GM a break.

Also, some GMs wanting a more powerful campaign can start their group with campaign karma, (non transferrable) to 'buy' a boosted character that will still be balanced, so the group can either learn with training wheels, or being powerful heroes for harder storylines.

This is one of the less tested parts of my game, as it happens so infrequently. So I will probably make some tweaks at some future point.