Literary Devices: Death

Death sucks.

I mean, I guess, unless you’re playing some sort of game where you happen to die a lot. But, for most characters, they can’t say that they die ‘a lot’. They probably won’t get a chance to say it once.

The following is going to be a musing on what death is, with no metaphysical forces involved except for an unhealthy dose of opinion. (Or should we say, a lethal dose – GETS SHOT.) It’s not motivated by any sort of weird feelings of mine or by any recent events, so no, I’m not contemplating suicide or suddenly becoming an adventurer. If anything, this comfy, padded cell is pretty nice.

(Although, the timing is rather on-point with the Orlando shooting. There might be some kind of priming going on there.)

Anyway, go away monkey mind. Today, I’d like to argue that death is largely a mechanical failure. Because it puts into some perspective how absolutely horrible the process must be. (If you would like to speak from experience, be my guest. Wait. No! Monkey mind! Get out!) We’re not going to talk about whether consciousness comes from a soul, AT field, cognitive science, evolution, or flying pigs. All that matters is that you count as dead once an outside viewer can no longer observe your consciousness.

That’s the thing, though. Just because you can’t actually express yourself doesn’t mean all of you is dead. A wilted flower probably has a number of cells still living, albeit not for much longer. A crashed computer might have a misplaced pointer or a wire cut somewhere, but most of it works fine. A comatose patient can’t speak, but they still breathe and sleep. There’s a lot of parts which are still functioning, but the end result is no longer the pretty, organized, and complete system that we’d like to see.

Just because an outsider can’t see your behavior, doesn’t mean that you still don’t have feeling. If we assume that you still feel pain after you’ve lost consciousness, that’s where things get disturbing. Let’s say a hypothetical you gets shot in the head and loses consciousness, and the only actual cells damaged are the ones in the brain. If you are shot, again, then those damaged neurons are still going to fire off pain receptors. The undamaged parts of your skin and organs will still have oxygen for a time, and will slowly die out as they run out. The areas in your lungs will continue to function until they run out of glucose. An amputated arm won’t actually cease to live for several hours. It might not be a long time until every last cell has actually died.

Physical diseases are just situations where the body breaks down before the mind does. Mental diseases are where the brain cannot function at optimal capacity, but enough of it works to create consciousness. If anything, consciousness is an arbitrary (yet important) threshold which doesn’t determine whether the majority of cells and organs are actually alive or dead. You could be mostly alive, but without a functioning mind (and therefore typically considered dead), or… you could stand and fight until you can no longer stand.

The scary part is when you no longer assume that lethal damage actually means that you’re dead. Getting stabbed in the throat doesn’t mean your brain runs out of oxygen for several more seconds, which could still be enough to fight back. Losing an arm doesn’t mean you run out of blood for quite a long time. There can be this relatively long period where you know that you’re going to die, but your brain hasn’t shut down yet. This period could be a time measured in minutes or hours, long enough to actually win the fight and (depending on level of technology) seek medical attention. And this is why mechs are cool.

Still 100% functional.

Okay. Switching to narrative perspectives for a moment, the dramatic value of an actor is proportional to how long they survive in a fight. Protagonists usually survive the fight. Expendable cannon fodder probably survives for a few seconds per individual. However, fights which feel evenly matched are cooler and more dramatic, and an even matchup is demonstrated by longer fights and more battle damage per actor throughout the fight, approaching but not exceeding the visual threshold of death. It really doesn’t matter how impairing the damage actually is, just how much there is. For humans, this is a bit of a problem. People can survive a lot of wounds for a little while, and then they presumably malfunction and die. This is bad for your action hero protagonist, which is why all the Stormtroopers conveniently miss instead. But, somewhere along the line, we assumed that machines don’t really bleed to death or fail slowly – all the remaining parts operate at 100% capacity. (Which should be wrong – losing large chunks of armor should destabilize the machine or warp joints so they can no longer rotate, or at the very least cut wires and hydraulics. But who cares, have some explosions!) In other words, robotic actors can take substantial amounts of damage, ranging from superficial to amputations, and continue to operate at full story capacity without destroying the narrative. You really can’t cut off someone’s arm and say that they win the fight, but it works with robots.

Now, I’m going to burn some of my nerd cred here, but I’ve only seen Evangelion for my mecha anime. But, some friends pointed me towards some Gundam clips recently, and they do an interesting case of combat drama here. Particularly, there’s two moments where we get to see the extremely disturbing perspective (2:52 and 3:25) of two people dying inside their robots. They go from full combat effectiveness to dead in, uh… really, really fast. The other dramatic part with giant robots is that there’s a bit of a disconnect between the robot and the pilot. There’s tons of armor and heavy weaponry between yourself and personal danger, and you can keep fighting until you – the pilot – are hit by bullets bigger than a car. And at that point it becomes extremely personal before being obliterated.

(The end of the clip also has a good point where the two remaining suits have their front chest armor bisected – exposing the pilots without any remaining armor – and yet they function perfectly fine.)

(Evangelion instead assumes that the Evas are more durable than the average weapon, and can take hits without obvious damage. Still a disconnect, but a very different one.)

Typical film combat for people also involves a lot of avoiding blows, like Gundam, until a decisive hit ends the battle. It’s interesting, though, since people can actually function for quite a while when wounded. That’s not how it works in movies. Take, for example, this clip (at 3:36). The assassin character does fancy things and then… knives two people wearing full suits of armor straight in the chest, killing them instantly. Even if we assume that the knives go straight through armor and the ribcage, a hole in your lung doesn’t kill you instantly. If anything, you have a spare. In this case, the soldiers die instantly to show off how AmAzInG the assassin guy is, but it’d be completely different if both of them survived and kept fighting for another thirty seconds. Different in tone, and it’d discredit the assassin a bit, but it might show that fighting through all these soldiers actually takes some work.

(Why is it that in all CGI things, if they want to show that there’s a lot of a something, they put in exactly two copies of it? There’s two bridges at a time, with exactly two guys on each one, with two archers shooting per bridge.)

(Man, it’s a good thing we’re not looking at assassin guy’s back when he uses his sword. It’d be too long for a back scabbard. I mean, sure, it looks cool. But it doesn’t geometrically work for Genji and it doesn’t work here.)

(Mage lady needs some armor, seriously. We already know she’s female, she doesn’t need a target on her chest. Why do the mooks get better armor? Does the armor make them weaker for some reason?)

(Oh right, I was writing a thing.)

Anyway. I can’t think of a recent film which had a human-scale fight where a combatant took more than superficial damage, like a broken arm. (I vaguelly recall Iron Man the first, where Tony Stark gets bloodied, and some Spiderman films where Peter Parker also gets bloodied. All superficial, if I remember right.) I think it’d add a scary – and human – level of drama to a fight. I’ve got some ideas for one.

God of the Machine

(For LMC 2400)

How too much player control breaks immersion

Immersion is a fickle thing. It’s the key to achieving roleplaying in a roleplaying game, but it breaks easily when the player gets distracted or something suddenly doesn’t make sense. Games these days tend to add more and more content which the player can control, focusing typically on the player character’s direct companions, but these features can break the credibility of the companions’ personalities and provide incentives for the player to break immersion. This increase in player control doesn’t help with roleplaying, and an alternate for these game mechanics needs to be found.

There’s a couple fundamental elements of a roleplaying game. You, the player, take on an alternate persona and become the Player Character, interacting with a world full of other characters (which are not you, hence they’re called Non-Player Characters) and you’d go on epic adventures and save princesses and all that other fun stuff. Once upon a time, this was done with pen, and paper. And tables, presumably, otherwise it wouldn’t be called a tabletop roleplaying game. At that time, one special player would be designated the Game Master, and they’d run the world, all of its NPCs, and provide a setting for all of your imminent shenanigans. The Game Master didn’t serve as the enemy of the players, even if he did control their antagonists. The GM’s job was to run the world and serve more as a referee. With the power to create everything and control everything, he was the settings’ God, and you were his mere pawn! Except, of course, you could stand up and punch the GM if they did anything stupid.

These days, computer Roleplaying Games have stemmed off from the original tabletop RPGs and resulted in its own genre of video games. These serve roughly the same purpose but do so in a much more visually appealing format and with less bookkeeping. Now, with the computer as your GM, some aspects of the genre have been lost in the conversion. There isn’t a lot of official comparisons between the media forms of RPGs, but Anders Tychsen brings up several key differences in his paper: Computer RPGs allow for a consistent and more visually immersive game, whereas the human Game Master allows for players to have complete freedom and story flexibility. Until we can create some kind of dynamic story generator, computer RPGs will focus on mostly linear story, decided ahead of time by a series of programmers. However, in order to increase player control, computer RPGs enable players to make minor changes to the game, such as smaller-scale narrative decisions, control of character advancement, and combat gameplay.

The problem, here, is that computer RPGs have given players enough information and control to effectively become their own Game Masters. They have more power than a player would in a tabletop situation, which makes it difficult for them to remain in their player role. This detracts from the main purpose of the genre, which is included in its name, the role-playing. Normally, a player is primarily focused on portraying their own character and indirectly influencing various NPCs. Computer RPGs, though, tend to offer features such as controlling your allies’ advances when they increase in skill or directly controlling your allies in combat. The time a player spends directly managing their allies is time they aren’t playing their role within the world. It pulls them out of immersion in order to do some manual bookkeeping. The player gets to impose their views on how the characters behave and fight, instead of allowing the companions to behave according to their own identity.

Let’s focus on Dragon Age: Origins for a few examples. In this game you serve as a Grey Warden, trying to unite a disparate set of cities and individuals against the oncoming Darkspawn horde. You meet new companions during the game, and you can manually control them during combat. In addition, you can set their tactics, equipment, skills, and combat abilities. With most of the game being solid combat, your ability to set your allies’ combat personalities means that you can impose your interpretation of their identity onto their abilities, instead of how the allies might actually react. This can lead to weird options, such as equipping Morrigan, a witch of the wilds, with a uniform from the Circle of Magi whom she absolutely despises.

Not to mention the hat looks dumb.

Or teaching Wynne, a member of said rigid Circle of Magi, the highly illegal Blood Mage specialization. She would be strongly opposed to becoming what she hates, but the game doesn’t point out any problems with this option. The thing is, these boosts in combat abilities can provide an incentive to take them when they wouldn’t fit the story at all. This strains the credibility of the game and breaks the player’s immersion.

That said, the above can be seen as the game separating the gameplay and story elements into distinct halves. Dragon Age’s romance system is perhaps a more widely known mechanic, and again the player’s access to knowledge tampers with their immersion. The player character can enter a relationship with one of their allies, and needs to generally manage the affection of all of their companions. Why? Turns out, each companion’s affection rating is always visible, and the companion gains combat bonuses depending on how strong their affection is. Thus, the game provides a direct incentive to appease every member of the party instead of performing whatever actions their character would do. Entering a romantic relationship doesn’t actually have any additional bonus, except that players really enjoy the relationships.

Looking into the Dragon Age relationship dialogue options, it appears that dialog is yet another way that players can alter the game world. While social interaction is key to any modern roleplaying game, it is sometimes extremely clear what the immediate effects of a dialog option is going to be.

Dialog selection wheel from Mass Effect 2. The upper left blue option is the ‘good’ Paragon option, while the lower left red option is the ‘evil’ Renegade option.

 

Dialogue options from Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Options which require certain skills are in parentheses, and are always better than other options.

When options are sufficiently clear, then it may not matter what the player was going to roleplay as. Having an idea of the gameplay implications can influence the player into making choices which lead to the correct gameplay result, rather than what they actually want to play as. In Dragon Age, this manifests as people choose responses in order to explicitly foster certain relationships. Several players’ reactions to romances in Dragon Age suggest that they intentionally pursued relationships with each of the companions out of curiosity rather than an emotional connection. For instance:

“…I chose Leliana for the time being. Now Leliana is

starting to get really annoying, but when I ended it

with her I didn’t have an option of starting anything

with Morrigan.“

Pursuing a relationship just out of curiosity seems rather odd. That kind of objective focus on character interaction seems like it’s not immersive, but it might work out if the player character’s romance ‘bleeds out’ to the player themselves.

In some ways, the ability to play as any character and perform any option in a roleplaying game indicates a postmodern influence on video gaming. As pointed out by Sturken and Cartwright, the form of a human body is easily changeable with plastic surgery, gender changes, and copious amounts of makeup. Creating a game character in a roleplaying game is a similar process in most games, allowing the player to craft any form they would like to be and then to experience a world as that character. This can be changed as often as the user would like, which parallels the rapid transfer of information and goods around the world today. Furthermore, a player can change their reactions in-game as often as they would like, by loading earlier save files to undo their actions. A player has immense control of the game world, and perhaps, they shouldn’t.

Compared to tabletop roleplaying games, modern-day computer roleplaying gamers have gained power over much greater amounts of the storyline. It was once the Game Master’s responsibility to manage and take care of the NPCs in a story, but players can now control NPCs close to the player in every form except personality. The dialog options tend to provide greater suggestions to the players, feeding them hints about what will happen and making it easier for them to navigate social situations as they would want. It also makes characters a bit more predictable and makes them feel less like an individual agent. The ability to save and reload compounds this, by allowing patient players to explore every path of a dialog tree and see all the possible reactions of the NPCs.

 

The NPCs in Undertale, and its fan games, do not like being treated as toys.

Ultimately, a given moment or character in a computer roleplaying game is less important compared to the tabletop. While players should have the ability to express themselves, this postmodern outlook hurts the player’s immersion and the significance of any given playthrough. A simple way to reduce the game aspects of a roleplaying game would be to hide certain pieces of information. For instance, hiding the affection bars in Dragon Age would make players focus more on the reactions of the characters or the NPCs’ general beliefs, instead of improving a specific number. Story-unfriendly customization options could be removed from a companion’s options when they increase in skill. Attention could shift from controlling allies directly to communicating and negotiating with them, although that would require more complicated artificial intelligence for NPCs.

Simply put, a player should have less direct control and more indirect control. They should have less knowledge of game mechanics and more cues and induction. Only the player deals with mechanics and micromanaging NPCs; the player character wouldn’t have any idea about these things. Games should steer a bit more towards presenting what the player character can see, so that the player and their character blend together.

 

Thank you, Ms. Schoemann!

 

Works Cited, in order of appearance:

Anders Tychsen. 2006. Role playing games: comparative analysis across two media platforms. In Proceedings of the 3rd Australasian conference on Interactive entertainment (IE ’06). Murdoch University, Murdoch University, Australia, Australia, 75-82.

Waern, Annika. “‘I’m in Love with Someone That Doesn’t Exist!’ Bleed in the Context of a Computer Game.” Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds 3.3 (2011): 239-57. Web.

Sturken, Marita, and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.

Images Cited, in order of appearance:

“Enchanter’s Arming Cap.” Dragon Age Wiki. Web. 06 May 2016.

Savagesparrow. “DAO–Sweet Hat.” DeviantArt. 01 May 1999. Web. 06 May 2016.

Mass Effect 2 Dialogue Options. Digital image. Fantasy Faction. June 2015. Web. 6 May 2016. <http://fantasy-faction.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-JUN-Mass-Effect-Conversation-Wheel.jpg&gt;.

Dingman, Hayden. Shadowrun: Dragonfall screen capture with Silke. Digital image. Shadowrun: Dragonfall Review: Even Better than the Original. PCWorld, 7 Mar. 2014. Web. 6 May 2016.

Dreemurr Reborn. Undertale Fan Boss Fight: Chara. Digital image. Youtube. Google, 27 Feb. 2016. Web. 6 May 2016.

Works Referenced

Champion, Eric. “Roleplaying and Rituals For Cultural Heritage – Orientated Games.” Digital Games Research Association, May 12 (2015). Web. 5 May 2016.

Westecott, Emma. “The Player Character as Performing Object.” DiGRA International Conference 5 (2009). Web. 5 May 2016.

cmstatus.log

6/12/20_0400:	[WARNING] Explosion detected in Nerv_Iceland. Estimated combat readiness 07%.
6/12/20_0400:	Contact lost with: Adrian_Hertz, BATARIEL_Containment, CoreShard_ZETA, Eva02, Eva04, Eva05, Eva08, Eva09. Querying…
6/12/20_0402:	Contact re-established with: BATARIEL_Containment, Eva 02, Eva04, Eva05, Eva 08, Eva09.
6/12/20_0403:	BATARIEL_Containment reports 00% integrity. Requesting confirmation.
6/12/20_0404:	CommSatellite_US102 selected as primary observation post.
6/12/20_0404:	CommSatellite_US102 reports visual sighting of: Angel_BATARIEL, Eva05, Eva09, Valkyrie.
6/12/20_0404:	[WARNING] Angel_BATARIEL has escaped containment. Nerv_Iceland, Valkyrie upgraded to Condition 2. All hands to battle stations. Nerv_Florida, Nerv_Hawaii, Nerv_Taiwan upgraded to Condition 3.
6/12/20_0404:	Valkyrie has begun engine startup sequence.
6/12/20_0404:	Eva05, Eva09 has begun plug entry sequence v3.
6/12/20_0405:	Querying: Adrian_Hertz, CoreShard_ZETA.
6/12/20_0407:	CommSatellite_US102 reports visual sighting of: CoreShard_ZETA. CoreShard_ZETA in possession of Angel_BATARIEL. CoreShard_ZETA status updated to: Lost.
6/12/20_0408:	Eva05, Eva09 has finished plug entry sequence v3. Eva05 synch ratio 25%. Eva09 synch ratio 54%.
6/12/20_0409:	CommSatellite_US102 reports orbit has exited visual range. Requesting new primary observation post.
6/12/20_0410:	Querying: Adrian_Hertz.
6/12/20_0410:	Contact with Adrian_Hertz has not been re-established for 10 minutes. Promoting Zachary_Fillmore to acting commander. Querying…
6/12/20_0410:	[WARNING] Eva05 entry plug eject code detected.
6/12/20_0410:	[WARNING] Eva05 reports catastrophic damage. Locations: Upper Torso, Lower Torso, Left Arm, Head, Left Leg. Estimated combat readiness 02%.
6/12/20_0410:	Contact lost with: Eva05. Eva05 status updated to: Destroyed.
6/12/20_0411:	IcelandNationalObservatory selected as primary observation post.
6/12/20_0411:	IcelandNationalObservatory reports Eva09 traveling at unprecedented velocity.
6/12/20_0411:	Eva09 reports heavy damage. Locations: Lower Torso. Estimated combat readiness 62%.
6/12/20_0411:	[WARNING] Valkyrie reports heavy damage. Locations: Left Engine, Left Aerilon. Estimated combat readiness 76%.
6/12/20_0411:	Valkyrie engine startup sequence aborted.
6/12/20_0412:	Plug entry sequence not detected for Eva02, Eva 04, Eva08 despite Condition 2 combat status. Eva02, Eva 04, Eva08 status updated to: Inactive.
6/12/20_0413:	IcelandNationalObservatory reports Angel_BATARIEL undergoing high energy buildup.
6/12/20_0414:	[WARNING] Eva09 reports catastrophic damage. Locations: Upper Torso. Estimated combat readiness 22%.
6/12/20_0414:	[WARNING] Valkyrie reports catastrophic damage. Locations: Left Crew Quarters, Hangar, Right Crew Quarters, Right Engine, Right Aerilon. Estimated combat readiness 31%.
6/12/20_0414:	Contact lost with: Eva09. Eva09 status updated to: Destroyed.
6/12/20_0414:	[EMERGENCY] Zero active Eva units within 20 minute range of Angel_BATARIEL, CoreShard_ZETA, Valkyrie. Nerv_Iceland, Nerv_Florida, Nerv_Hawaii, Nerv_Taiwan, Valkyrie upgraded to Condition 1. XK Scenario in progress.
6/12/20_0415:	Querying: Zachary_Fillmore.
6/12/20_0416:	[EMERGENCY] Valkyrie reports catastrophic damage. Locations: Reactor. Estimated combat readiness 00%.
6/12/20_0417:	[EMERGENCY] Valkyrie reports catastrophic damage. Locations: All. Estimated combat readiness 00%.
6/12/20_0417:	[EMERGENCY] Contact lost with: Valkyrie. Valkyrie status updated to: Destroyed.
6/12/20_0419:	IcelandNationalObservatory reports sighting of LILITH.
6/12/20_0419:	[APOLLYON] The following conditions have been met (minimum 2): Lilith, Angel Victory.
6/12/20_0419:	[APOLLYON] Transmitting decryption override APOLLYON to all Nerv bases. If you can see this message, it doesn’t really matter what happens next. Stop reading these logs and do something productive. – The Developers.
6/12/20_0420:	Querying: Zachary_Fillmore.
6/12/20_0420:	Contact with Zachary_Fillmore has not been re-established for 10 minutes. Promoting [ERROR: ArrayOutOfBoundsException in chainOfCommandQueue, line 23887] to acting commander.
6/12/20_0421:	Contact lost with: IcelandNationalObservatory. Requesting new primary observation post.
6/12/20_0422:	[ERROR: NetworkTimeoutException in ObservationPostFactory, line 34729]
6/12/20_0425:	Querying: [ERROR: NullPointerException in recontactArray, line 29348].
6/12/20_0430:	Querying: [ERROR: NullPointerException in recontactArray, line 29348].
6/12/20_0430:	Contact with [ERROR: NullPointerException in highCommander, line 29762] has not been re-established for 10 minutes. Promoting [ERROR: ArrayOutOfBoundsException in chainOfCommandQueue, line 23887] to acting commander.
6/12/20_0435:	Querying: [ERROR: NullPointerException in recontactArray, line 29348].
6/12/20_0440:	Querying: [ERROR: NullPointerException in recontactArray, line 29348].
6/12/20_0440:	Contact with [ERROR: NullPointerException in highCommander, line 29762] has not been re-established for 10 minutes. Promoting [ERROR: ArrayOutOfBoundsException in chainOfCommandQueue, line 23887] to acting commander.
6/12/20_0445:	Querying: [ERROR: NullPointerException in recontactArray, line 29348].
6/12/20_0446:	[WARNING] Temperature levels in server room have exceeded YELLOW threshold!
6/12/20_0446:	[EMERGENCY] Temperature levels in server room have exceeded RED threshold!
6/12/20_0446:	System entering hibernation to avoid loss of data.
6/12/20_0446:	[ERROR: CorruptedDataException in discDrive23, line

[END OF FILE]

The Cast: Motivation

Over the course of telling or preparing to tell a number of stories, I’ve created a number of characters. Some of them have stuck more than others, even if they do sometimes blend together somewhat. A while back, though, I realized that the easiest way to figure out the essence of a character was to determine how they would answer a tough question. We’re going to do some of that today, with a single question: “Why do you fight?”

Irysana, the Wandering Duelist
Dungeons and Dragons

“Why do you fight?”

“Oh, it’s just for fun! Makes good exercise, and helps with hunting, and it’s really fancy and fun. It’s so easy to to feel like myself when practicing. You know, you can see what a person is like through their style.
Um, fighting people? Is that what you were talking about? I’d rather not. Fight people, I mean. But… the things some people do? Stealing and, um, other bad things? It’s just wrong. And sometimes they don’t get that it’s wrong, and they won’t listen to me. I mean, I’d rather not fight anyone, but sometimes they don’t let you choose.”

Jaren Tordir, the Chivalrous Duskblade
Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

“Why do you fight?”

“I fight for those who cannot. Those of us with power, no matter what form it takes, have a duty to their people. This world is a sad one, where lawlessness and danger run rampant. What I do allows other people to live, and to live without fear.”

Erathiel, the Warlock with Many Lies
Dungeons and Dragons 4

“Why do you fight?”

“Hmm. To demonstrate and to obtain power, of course. How else can one discover their true potential than by experimenting upon their opponents? What I learn from victory brings me a step closer to understanding the power of Gods.”
But, if I do not fight, I will soon die of the ironic yet inevitable old age. If I can defeat these beings, maybe I can learn how to break out of this accursed contract. And, perhaps I can enslave the devil with a contract of my own.

Serran Holgate, the False Man
Adeptus Evangelion 3, Beta Test 1

“Why do you fight?”

“All my life I’ve been defined by the half of me that doesn’t work. These stupid, useless legs. In the Eva, however, I can walk. I can run. And I’m one of the exceptional few who can pilot one. In the Eva, I’m not weighed down by my deformities. In fact, I’ve been given a unique opportunity to make my mark on history. Who can truly say that they have saved the world?”

Alicia Sturgesson, Commander of Nerv
Adeptus Evangelion 3, Beta Test 3

“Why do you fight?”

“For the future of humanity and the fate of mankind.
We must simultaneously dedicate every resource we have to avoid our extinction and to prepare for what comes afterward. The Evangelions have always been more than a weapon. They are tools. When the Angels are destroyed, humanity will be able to use the Evangelions to innovate and accelerate technological growth. They have been, and always will be, a key to our survival as a species.
Do you have any other questions?”

Kendrell Harrows, the Farmer
Pathfinder

“Why do you fight?”

“Um. Well. I don’t really fight, Thoros does. I just support the others, really. But I’m here because the alternative… It’s so much worse. The Trittik swarms will devour all of Faeos unless someone stops them, and I can help. At least somewhat.
My mom and dad, and my younger sisters, they’re all still at home. And so are so many other families. We have to try. We have to do everything we can, for all of their sakes.”

Batariel, The Rain of God
Adeptus Evangelion 3, Beta Test 3

“Why do you fight?”

“Why, it is simple. Since they have chained Mother and taken Her from us, we will take her back. I did speak to the humans, however, and offered them an exchange. They refused, and even worse, they lied. I would rather not fight them, since it is not our nature. But, if they will not cooperate peacefully, then I will stoop to their level.

“What makes this more curious is how they don’t seem to understand the situation. If one of their parents were captured, surely they would have the loyalty to fight for their parents’ return. And if I, the Witness, want Mother back? What an alien concept to them. How strange. How hypocritical. How very foolish on their part.”

Bastion, the Troll Illusionist
Shadowrun 5

“Why do you fight?”

“Fight? You can’t be serious. It’s too noisy. I joined these shadowruns for the income it brings, and getting into a fight is a quick way to get into jail. Want me to fight on the good side of the law? You better be able to pay for it. Call me selfish if it makes you feel better. Thing is, chummer, crime never ends. Your value to this world is measured in cold, hard Nuyen.  And crime pays pretty well.
Once I pay off these debts, though, then I can worry about other things. I think I might open a magic school. Of course, that also takes money, and you have to work for it.”

 

 

Design: AdEva’s Critical Damage

“Mother, you are lost to us now. For the first time, I understand your eternal pain. Sleep well, in the twilight of your dreams.”

So, as alluded to in the previous post, AdEva has a nifty damage representation. It’s intended to simulate movies, and let’s see how successful that is.

Before we jump into anything, it’s worth remembering that the number of combatants is really low. There is one Eva per player, and the GM typically runs one Angel. (The exceptions, though, are absolutely glorious.) What this means, though, is that the damage mechanic can be more complex, and it should be more complex. That one Angel needs to provide a satisfying fight every time, and it’s not going to be satisfying if it suddenly keels over at the end when it runs out of hit points.

The Mechanic

Each Eva-scale unit has two damage stats: damage, and critical momentum. Unfortunately, by the end of this, we’re going to incorporate… at least 5 more stats. AdEva has this pretty well rooted into the rules, and it’d take a lot of work to remove.

When you are hit by attacks, your damage increases. There is no upper bound to damage.

Your critical momentum is equal to your damage divided by 15, rounded down. When you are hit by an attack, you generally roll on the hit effect tables based on which body part was hit. These tables operate on a scale from 1 to 10, where 9-10 is basically the complete destruction of that body part. (These Evangelions are big enough that losing an arm doesn’t actually take you out of the fight. Also it can be repaired, via technomagic.) Depending on the severity of the hit, you will either roll a 6-sided die or a 10-sided die for the hit effect roll, adding the critical momentum to the result.

These critical hit tables used to be based on the Dark Heresy system, which had a beautiful set of critical damage tables. We’ll give a comparison between the two damage systems in a bit.

What this Means

So, as the fight goes on, you deal and take progressively worse effects. Really, though, it feels like you make progress during the fight, and the effect of a hit isn’t so certain. You’re never really willing to take a critical hit and roll that ten-sided die, because there’s a small (but ever growing) chance that you’ll be taken out of the fight.

By default this would be pretty bad. One player hits first, gives the other guy a bad effect because he hits, and then he has the advantage so he can keep delivering bad effects. The fight snowballs from there. Fortunately, there’s a number of ways to not actually roll hit effects yet. Players can prepare Guard actions, which give them a percent chance to flat-out ignore the attack based on their Reflexes score. They can take cover, increasing their Armor and reducing the damage taken per hit. And, most importantly, they can spend their AT field to outright cancel hit effects, at the cost of taking more damage because it’s not reduced by armor. Hit effects are pretty bad, though, so you generally want to avoid them as much as possible. That said, it is never a no-brainer choice, because it means that when the AT field is breached later on, the extra damage you’ve accrued will lead to worse effects than what you might’ve faced earlier.

In other words, the AT field will allow you to delay the hit effects. If you’re hit later, the results will be worse. The AT field adds that sense of invulnerability where you can’t actually hurt an opponent, but behind the scenes that damage quantity ticks up rapidly. It’s like a debt which must be repaid, in terms of drama. The game rewards players for finally getting through that invulnerability and hurting their opponent by making the results more spectacular the longer that delay occurs.

It also means that a clever player who can avoid all the nasty hits (or absorb them on the AT field) will never die. After all, damage has no effect on its own aside from determining how bad effects will be later and how hard it is to block. Which might be weird, but kind of makes sense. It can reward smart play, if the other combat rules work well, while still maintaining a form of suspense around that character.

So, Dark Heresy?

AdEva used to be based off the Dark Heresy system. Not really sure why. If I had to guess, though, I’ll just point out that Dark Heresy is in the grim, dark, grimdark universe of Warhammer 40,000. It also has an insanity system. It’s not a crazy stretch to go from bleak, desperate fights against Daemons to bleak, desperate fights with teenagers in giant robots against aliens.

Speaking of which, Adeptus Evangelion takes its name from the Adeptus Mechanicus of the Warhammer setting. It was an indicator of how it modded that game system, but even after it’s become a separate rule set the name has stuck.

Dark Heresy is currently in its second edition, as of like a year ago. No idea if things have changed. Dark Heresy First Edition had wounds and critical damage. Your character has a pool of wounds which basically act as hit points. If you have wounds, you’re still alive. Once you hit zero, though, any excess damage is converted to a critical damage total. Then look up that total on one of these critical damage charts, based on where you were hit, and roll for how many fingers got cut off. Further damage will add to your critical damage total and give you something worse.

Note that Dark Heresy’s critical damage tables go up to around 10 or so, like AdEva, except 10 means you die in such an extremely violent manner that there’s a horrible side effect. Like, your leg explodes with such force that it deals damage equal to a frag grenade. And, in this game, the standard-issue Boltgun deals 1d10+5 damage (which is far more than your armor), and you could easily go from a couple wounds to paste.

There’s fifteen other tables just like this one.

It’s basically still a hit point system, though, except that there’s a soft limit where you can go over your hit points while suffering broken bones. And that you’ll probably explode at the end. It wasn’t really used for normal enemies, so it’s basically a way of making player death really dramatic.

Does it Work?

Overall? Yes. AdEva has a couple of problems in its combat mechanics which leads to flaws in the system sometimes. More on that in a bit. But, the best parts have been the surprises.

I don’t think I’ll forget my first game with this damage system, where it was two of us versus a strange, squid-like Angel. We were advancing on the Angel, trading blows, when a lucky hit was too much for my AT field to bear, and the Eva was speared in the chest and defeated. Bam. Suddenly the stakes were high, and there was a very real chance we’d all lose the fight. My teammate got reckless, began attacking the Angel without a consideration for defense, and fortunately prevailed. We couldn’t have predicted that turning point, and it created a memorable moment. One where the game took a life of its own, and it was like watching a movie for the first time. I think that after that point I over-invested in defenses, just to avoid getting surprised like that. It made the fight more visceral, and survival abilities became immensely important.

The combat bug I mentioned earlier is that, well, to hurt an Eva-scale target you need to get through the AT field. Unfortunately, the most effective way to deplete their AT field is to attack. The best way to hurt them… is also to attack. It’s pretty much always the best choice, which is a problem. As campaigns go on, though, there are more alternatives, but it’s still a problem.

A campaign and two beta tests later, I’d had my Angel, Belphegor, fused with a (non-player) Eva and holding off all three of my players.

Who commands who? The Angel on the outside, or the human within?

I got to see the AT-bypassing mechanics firsthand when one lucky shot cracked the Eva’s core, and Belphegor split off – but both were stunned by that impact. While the Eva overheated and the Angel was still stunned, Another player followed up with a lucky critical hit from his sword, dealing a killing blow to the Angel as well. I wasn’t prepared for two kill shots in a row! I scrambled through Belphegor’s defenses (since the AT field auto-breached by some mechanics – as the campaign goes on, these appear more frequently, and make high damage pools that much scarier), found the one dice reroll I could use, and gambled for the fate of something the players didn’t understand. I sighed in relief when the result wasn’t death – much like Belphegor would have – but it still left a scarring reminder on that Angel.

And then the Eva exploded and Belphegor went up in the chain reaction, so it was all moot anyway. But, the panic was palpable. It’s also had a lasting impact on the campaign. No spoilers, though, the players don’t know what it is yet.

Overall, though? It makes games intense. It makes games cinematic, desperate, and unpredictable. You’re not suddenly worried at low health, you’re gradually more invested over time. And when the battle ends, it’s rewarding.

Game Overview: Adeptus Evangelion

“Only your kind would come up with such a weapon. One which erases matter it contacts. One which requires the destruction of a soul. And you call us demons.”

Ah, Adeptus Evangelion. I’ve been following this fan-made game system for a few years now, from when it was its second version of modding Dark Heresy to the present, where it’s now its own independent system (in beta testing). There’s nothing like roleplaying a bunch of weak teenagers piloting giant robots operated by the souls of their dead mothers.

Hold on, let’s start from the beginning.

“The fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth!”

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a pretty weird show. Your main protagonist is the most insecure member of a cast of completely broken individuals, piloting giant mysterious giant robots, against giant weird indestructible aliens, with this whole conspiracy going on in the background, all with a heavy dose of Christian imagery which is completely unrelated to the real mythology going on here. It’s a mind trip.

Are those legs twitching?

It’s also pretty old, but getting remakes, and so on. Eva wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if it weren’t for all the fan theories, and then inevitably the fan fiction. And then the fan roleplaying game.

So, I have a slight bias towards this system.

Okay, other than the fact that it’s Evangelion, the other appeal comes in the form of a number of innovative game mechanics. Not to say that it’s a perfect game system, but some elements here really ought to exist in other games. Let’s start from the top.

Separate Combat Experience and Non-Combat Experience

This isn’t the most significant change, but it is the easiest to implement. In Dungeons and Dragons, there’s a number of garbage feats which give small bonuses to your non-combat skills. Now, why would you ever take a +2 to your Survival and Tracking when you could instead get the ability to split the heads of enemies with Power Attack? Okay, maybe you’re a pacifistic character, and you’re non-violent. Sorry, you’re probably playing the wrong system, D&D has a lot of combat. The problem really is, though, what if you died because you took non-combat choices instead of combat options? That opportunity cost is nasty.

AdEva separates the two into separate resources. Enrichment can be spent to improve skills (and a number of other social options), while Experience is spent on upgrading your Evangelion and learning combat techniques. There is a bit of an overlap; there’s a couple skill options that require spending Experience to unlock before you can use Enrichment to buy the actual options, and you spend Experience to improve your character’s basic ability scores (which helps both combat and non-combat). Still, though, if a game is going to involve a lot of combat, there needs to be a system which doesn’t require characters to sacrifice non-combat character development.

Soft Damage and Critical Momentum

This is the big one. In most systems, you have hit points. If you have at least one hit point, you can fight on and cut down infinite hordes of enemies! At zero hit points, you explode into a pool of blood and die. Uh, what? How does that make any sense?

Critical Existence Failure – TV Tropes

In AdEva, if you take any amount of damage (after armor), something bad happens to you. How bad is dependent on how tough you are. In fact, the only way to actually die is by rolling high results on these Critical Effect tables. Normally that would mean that you have a low chance of dying from any attack at all, but to add a sense of drama, the severity of the results is proportional to the amount of total damage you’ve taken.

That probably doesn’t sound like a lot (and it’s definitely more complicated, so it’ll be explained more some other time), but it creates a good drama curve. As the fight goes on, you’re not simply knocked about by your opponents, your Eva’s armor starts to buckle and arms get broken, and you’re more and more worried that all the systems will catastrophically fail and your Eva’s head gets cut off. And there’s nothing quite as satisfying as slowly whittling down an impossibly tough foe and finally overwhelming them.

Luck Triggers

AdEva has a built-in roleplaying incentive in the form of granting Luck. Luck is a resource for the player, which allows them to better control the narrative. For instance, a large amount of luck allows you to defy character death or to create an opportunity to sneak into a restricted area. These are granted by a number of character traits determined by the player at character creation (and approved by the GM). The incentive helps get a little bit more character out of everyone.

And, because this is Eva, as the creeping madness of fighting alien beings takes its toll, you might start to get luck triggers to roleplay mental breakdowns. Have fun!

 

Okay, y’know what? There’s a bunch of interesting design decisions in AdEva, but trying to cover them all at once is just too much. Doesn’t allow any in-depth discussion, either. So, we’ll revisit all of these again in a bit and talk more about what the mechanic really is in detail, why it was implemented that way, and alternatives and critiques.

The First Word

“So, you’re telling me that I can write anything I want here? Why would anyone trust me with that power?”

“Well, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Hehehehe. I have no idea.”