Death

[BoringSupreez]

I just recalled Rome: Total War. Each general is a member of your family and they can be killed in battle, and that includes youself (the head of the family). If they're killed they're gone from the game forever, along with all their skills. There's no way to prevent eventual death, as they can also die from old age. IMO a nice realistic portrayal of death; you want to avoid it as long as possible but it's inevitable, so you're forced to constantly be grooming the next generation into competent generals.

[J T]

The recent indy game Rogue Legacy played with death in a cool way, basically when your character died the game would do a time skip and the main character would be replaced with their son/daughter. Probably not the first game to do this sort of thing but it's still a cool way to subvert a convention.

I've been playing this game recently and I really like it a lot. The death system is cool because you feel like your goal of making it through the castle is not just your own, but belongs to the entire line of heirs as they collectively work over time to fulfill their great great great great... great great grandfather's legacy who was a great warrior despite his fear of chickens and problems with dyslexia.

[Menegrothx]

I love when games actually explain why your character can't die or suffer serious injury. RPGs always take place in worlds with magic and magical potions that can heal any injury.

Bioshock has an explanation for how your character is able to respawn from death built into its story.

Vita-Chambers and Quantum Bio-Reconstruction Machines are the most stupid part about System Shock and Bioshock. Sure they explain how they bring you back to life, but they don't explain who carries your corpse to the nearest station after you die. Though it is explained in BS why only the protagonist revives after dying.

System Shock 1 had a neat cutscene if you died: the player character would be turned into mutant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvKyQvFd5jY

[Flake]

I never played it but as I understood it, in Heavy Rain your characters could die permanently and it would make a genuine difference in how the game was resolved. Was that implemented well?

[Gunstar Green]

The recent indy game Rogue Legacy played with death in a cool way, basically when your character died the game would do a time skip and the main character would be replaced with their son/daughter. Probably not the first game to do this sort of thing but it's still a cool way to subvert a convention.

I've been playing this game recently and I really like it a lot. The death system is cool because you feel like your goal of making it through the castle is not just your own, but belongs to the entire line of heirs as they collectively work over time to fulfill their great great great great... great great grandfather's legacy who was a great warrior despite his fear of chickens and problems with dyslexia.

I really like it as well. I think they could've done more with the legacy aspect of it instead of just being a random roll for character class and traits but it was different nevertheless.