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I am working on a skill-based, classless browser-based game (amongst several other projects). I was trying to think of a death penalty for the game, and I came up with an idea. Each character will get a special item called a "Chalice of Life". It won't actually be treated mechanically as an item, since it won't be in the inventory and the player cannot throw it away, so it will be treated as more of a stat. The player will be able to enter any church in any city, and fill their Chalice for a cost. Once filled, the water will vanish and the Chalice will give the player the option of being resurrected at a safe place if they are killed. A full Chalice will give the player between 3 - 5 resurrections (not sure how many just yet). If the player dies after their Chalice has been emptied, they will either have to be resurrected by another player, or accept a -1 skill point penalty chosen at random. Depending on how advanced the skill is that gets chosen to be penalized, this could nullify hours of work.

However, there will hardly ever be a time when the player cannot avoid the death penalty. Even if the player is flat broke, they can ask the church NPCs for a charity hand-out refill, although they can only get one every once in a while. Even if they were being greedy and pushed their luck, players will be able to raise them with no penalty. Max skill healers are even able to resurrect anyone in the world without them being there, although this will require a reagent item to be sacrificed in the hopes that it may create a business where max skill healers can sell their resurrection services.

My hopes for the system is that players do feel some fear of death and some fear of getting into bad situations, while at the same time not hitting them too hard for experimenting or just having fun. As a positive side-effect, it would also remove some extra currency out of the economy by siphoning it off to NPCs.

What do you think?

The penalty for death, is death.

Nethack style! Actually I'm serious in suggesting if they can't die, don't call it death - call it a horrible physical trauma or such.

But here's an idea - Your players pay alot for the chalice. Okay, there is a timer set for some time in the future - if they can avoid trauma for that long, they get half (or whatever amount you decide) of the money they paid returned to them! They fear trauma during that time because they will miss out on a bonus if they suffer it.

I think there has to be something big at stake, for players to get tense about it. But it doesn't have to be a penalty that's at stake - it can be missing out on a big bonus, instead.

The problem with something big and harsh being at stake over death in a PBBG is the low stickiness of these types of games. Any major set-backs will almost certainly cause them to close out the game and never come back, rather than gritting their teeth and trying to make a comeback.

As far as the player missing a bonus rather than taking a penalty for death is interesting. I was really counting on not giving the money they used to fill the chalice back, however, since that would be an effective money sink. Would it feel cheap to the players, though? I don't know, but players seem pretty tolerant with paying to repair their armor in other games, and that is an obvious money sink. This is just more like insurance than paying for the damages lol.

I may think of how to change a death penalty to losing a bonus, but it is kind of hard to explain in the game, though. I guess the Chalice of Life idea is also kind of hard to explain, but I guess it would work where the player is carrying around blessing of their god that they could use when in risk of death. But it is hard to think of some reason why a player could visit someone and they say "Good, you didn't die this hour, either, so here is your payment!"

Well, if you were counting on taking the money, if it were going to cost 100gold and you get back half if you avoid trauma, make it cost 200gold instead - same result as you wanted, in the end. Besides, you can make all sorts of money sinks - make armour that has a little tiny bit of extra power/stat bonus for a real life hour if you use power crystals on it - oh, where do you get power crystals you ask? Your friendly local NPC merchant! It's a bit of a seperate subject, but I'm always a little leery of money sinks - they don't work - they just slow down the rate of inflation, rather than stop it.

Would it feel cheap to the players, though? I don't know, but players seem pretty tolerant with paying to repair their armor in other games, and that is an obvious money sink. This is just more like insurance than paying for the damages lol.

Well, I thought you'd still have that potential stat loss as the real sting that avoids cheapness. As said, if they only get half back, there's still a cost.

And in the end you have the conundrum you put yourself - any significant setback would kill play in the short term. It always has to be a bit cheap, really.

It's also how you pitch it - don't pitch it as a bonus when someone calls it cheap, pitch it as a penalty - 100 gold missed out on (out of the 200gold cost). When someone thinks it's too harsh, pitch it as a bonus - the chance to get 100gold back!

Oh dear, I think I have a knack for spin...

I guess the Chalice of Life idea is also kind of hard to explain, but I guess it would work where the player is carrying around blessing of their god that they could use when in risk of death. But it is hard to think of some reason why a player could visit someone and they say "Good, you didn't die this hour, either, so here is your payment!"

Chalice of life seems cut and dried D&D standard stuff to me and not hard to explain away.

Really your prob is were talking mechanics first, then inventing fiction based on the mechanics, rather than having fiction first then inventing rules based on the fiction. Fiction first Vs Mechanics first...it's an interesting area I've talked about on RPG design forums quite a bit.

But anyway, thinking fiction first, to me if someone gets hurt, then soon after gets hurt again, it's much worse than if they had a recovery time. Don't you think? So this chalice would have to work extra hard if someone was traumatised soon after the last time - or so it seems to me. Perhaps it uses a stronger kind of water for this, and that water can be removed if not needed - indeed the priests probably want the adventurer to return this strong water for a sum, as the priests probably think there are more deserving people rather than clumsy adventurers!

Anyway, it has a ring of truth to me. To me it sounds like how our RL hospitals work - get traumatised too soon after a previous visit to hospital, and it's just gunna cost you even more!