A Heroic Death | Designing The Game 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Poor Cormac! He got the D&D equivalent of "You have died of dysentery."

The smartest design feature MCDM had was defining its core principles (heroic, tactical, cinematic and fantasy) and then making all design decisions based on those principles. That laser focus on design is genius. Merry Christmas MCDM crew!

I 100% was *so* sure that you were about to say "That's life! Sometimes you *don't* get closure. I agree! And I've had some entertaining and very dramatic sudden deaths in real life."

"If you fall into lava but aren't dead, you can try to swim out of the pool before all the flesh melts off your bones. That's fun (and dramatic)!" My absolute favorite quote from the video.

This is such a good idea. It's super unfun to wait through an hour of combat for your turn to be 'roll a death save'. In a game about making choices, having a choice when it comes to death is a great one.

Screaming "DOOBLYDOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!" every time James says "thing below the video"

Just what I wanted for Christmas. More MCDM!

In Epic Rap Battles of History, after "George RR Martin" points out to "JRR Tolkien" that his Game of Thrones is more realistic than Lord of the Rings because he kills main characters unexpectedly, Tolkien responds with this verse: "We all know the world is full of chance and anarchy So yes it's true to life for characters to die randomly But news flash: the genre's called fantasy It's meant to be unrealistic, you myopic manatee!"

My very first character, my very first adventure. First moment of the first scene, GM introduces that we're going to [town] to help [dwarf]. Broken down wagon in the center of the road. My level 1 ranger (who would know not to do this, but I didn't) walks up to the abandoned wagon in the middle of the road, goblin archers sneak attacked, died before my character spoke a single word or took a single action. In hindsight it's shocking that I'm still playing -- that's the nightmare scenario for a new player.

That moment with Aragorn and Boromir is so good, I literally have chills just listening James recounting it!

That sounds pretty cool. But hearing of Cormac's death does make me think that perhaps I generally prefer my fantasy un-heroic!

Hell yeah, that sounds awesome! It’s heroic and tactical, sure, but what I like about this mechanic is that the player retains their turn when they can do something while still being in the critical state, close to death.

"Thing below the video"??? Please, it's the Doobleydoo! (I may not have spelled it right.) :D I love this concept. I can't wait to hear more.

This sounds really cool. It’s great to hear how your key words are always at the centre of decisions your making for the game. This really fits all 3

One way our group has done dying is called “deaths door” basically once you get to 0hp or lower you are at deaths door. You can take turns as normal but if you take any damage in this state you make a Con Save to avoid death. You could also add the house rule that there is a penalty equal to negative HP. And then give out some ability or magic items that haves that penalty for a berserker character

I really love this mechanic. This is basically the sort of thing i have been wanting for a long time and i think it really feels good

Just got flee mortals as a gift And now a new video! What a day

Love the transition at the start 😅 so many D&D deaths feel pointless, I'm glad you're willing to change whatever tradition that doesn't suit you

There was one scene in a Scum and Villainy game I was running. It was in the finale of the campaign, and there was a fight going on between the crew's mystic, wielding a magitech sword made by the precursors and hopped up on combat serum he didn't even know the contents of, up against a terrifyingly powerful enemy mystic who was also hopped up on combat drugs, in a fight to protect a ritual that would terraform the dead world they were on and prevent ten billion people from starving to death. I had kind of angled things towards this because I knew that the PC mystic was not a match for this guy, and that his player would be ok with dying a dramatic death. Scum and Villainy doesn't really have very specific rules for anything worse than level 3 harm, so when the PC took a level 4, I offered him a choice. He could have a debilitating wound that would knock him out and leave his PC with a lasting injury, or he could take a wound which would give no penalties until a clock filled and he bled to death. I knew he was going to take the second option, but I did not see expect what was going to happen next. I'd figured that he would just push through another couple of exchanges and buy enough time for the ritual to finish or the other PCs to finish the mystic off. Instead, he turned to me and said "I'm going to grab onto this guy and then set off a grenade". That was honestly my favorite moment from my favorite session of any TTRPG I've ever run or played in. So glad to see that this game is going to have support for something similar.

Hell Yeah! Love an MCDM video on the holiday

What better way to say Merry Christmas to you all! And a happy new year with a new RPG to look forward to!

"Half or fewer" - I really appreciated that.

That's a pretty good workaround to the "going nova" phenomenon. Personally, I wouldn't use resurrection in my heroic fantasy games. When employed in cinematic, heroic media, resurrection tends to be a surefire way to make a heroic sacrifice a speed bump at best and damaging to the narrative as a whole at worst. If anything, have a resurrected hero be an NPC because their role in the grander scheme of things has changed.

In our 5e games we allow 5ft of prone movement when making saving throws, plus the ability to talk. Doesn’t necessarily lead to blaze of glory moments, but makes for much more dramatic and realistic death moments rather than not saying anything and bleeding out

There's the inverted nightmare version of Cormac's bleeding out that we see in modern d&d where the PCs are so insulated from death that *nothing* is treated as a threat. I think that's even worse than "death by dysentery" as someone described because the entire game turns into superman's world of cardboard no matter who or what is threatening the PCs

So excited for this game!

We had a 5e TPK where the DM asked us to roll a wisdom save on entering a room. ALL 5 of us failed and were frightened of the enemy, meaning the 3 melee characters could not reach the enemy to deal their best damage, and could only throw their limited ammo at disadvantage. The fight still lasted for about 4 rounds, and all 5 PC's failed their Wisdom save every turn and were unable to break the fear. Was just a case of tremendously bad luck.

What a nice surprise gift. Merry Christmas MCDM!

Based in having seen action movies, I feel like some, just some, villains should have the PC death system too. A million underlings die easy, but there's often that one righthand man or bbeg that you thought was down for the count but sneaks in one final shot as he's holding his gut to stop from bleeding out.

I really like the vibe of these updates with James! A nice vibe of your own. And a fun way to get informed! Thanks MCDM team, have a merry Christmas while we're looking forward to your next update (and that patreon play-test package)

This video is an amazing example of how you gamify an awesome scene from one of the greatest movies of all time!

Nice to see more of you James! Thanks for the video and great explanations!

Fun fact: Lava is far too hot for a human to survive landing in, even for a few seconds. You catch fire before touching it, probably pass out from fumes, and then flesh is gone quickly, followed by bones.

Love seeing this game develop and grow! Merry Christmas, MCDM!

4:12 backlight briefly falls unconscious

Awesome! We introduced ‘bloodied’ into our games a while back and it’s awesome to be able to communicate with your teammates or know how low an enemy is with one “condition”. There are a few monsters like you mentioned that go frenzied or something when you get bloodied and start changing their targets.

I'm always looking to make heroic sacrifices in games and they so very rarely enable it. That "keep fighting while you're out" idea is perfect. It enables reckless heroic play if you're willing to die without just trivialising things. It doesn't necessarily always result in death, which means you can play that reckless character decision out and not necessarily know how it's going to go. And it even enables moments of impotence. A heroic raging against something you absolutely can't beat, which I also can find fun. Think about all the cinematic moments where a hero risks it all and doesn't win. They often even already know they aren't going to win, but they go down swinging regardless. The one area I'd be worried about is if it started being treated as just extra health, but if its risky enough from the get go that most players aren't going to want to fight while in that state, and there are enough non risky options to take in that state that players won't just do it because they want to interact, then it's pretty much perfect.

I tried to use something similar as a house rule in D&D. It was kinda complex for the players but I really like this a lot. And yeah I jokingly called it "The Boromir Rule"

Negative numbers might make this not as beginner friendly, hopefully the way to track this on the character sheet solves this problem

I like the idea of giving special enemies this mechanic as well! Like legendary resistances but cooler

Huzzah! A surprise present from MCDM. Merry Christmas!

I like it, I don’t agree with comments saying it’s simply more health because you are likely to damage yourself actually doing things when you are unstable, so it’s not ‘just more health’, the negative health functions differently. Also, what’s with the assumption that reviving is going to be some cost less, free thing?

Love these design videos, but they make me sad in a specific way. Matt and James are very good at pointing out all the ways that this game of Tactical Cinematic Heroic Fantasy involves different design decisions from a Survival/Horror/Dungeon Crawl experience... with the result that I really want to see the same energy and finesse applied to the latter kind of game from MCDM as well! Alas, maybe someday.

DC20 has a similar death mechanik called Deaths Door. I incorperated it a couple of months ago and I love it.

One TTRPG I like to play has heroic deaths as a mechanic, though it's a lot more loose and narrative than what it seems you guys are making. Basically, when your characters hit 0 HP, you either get knocked out of the fight, no attacking you or anything, or you get the option to do a heroic sacrifice if you meet certain conditions (such as having the main big bad in the fight, or it being related to your personal arc) where you permanently die, no revives, and get to do one cool thing in the narrative.

More James!

Just love James’ presentation. Magical.

The rule sounds good, not sure the term unstable feels intuitive for it tho

This is great. Love your videos, James

Another good video. Each of you having your own unique outro lines is a nice touch too. Well done, all around!

I'm back, on the other side of the video now. Love what you guys came up with

Awesome. Keep the updates coming!

What a beautiful Chrimpmus Present

I like it. As long as it doesn't fall into 5e's issue of heroes become ridiculously hard to kill

I've had the earth elemental step on a characters head to make sure their dead! I love that shirt.

I play with people who name their characters the reverse spelling of their 1st name. There's a 5% chance they have any more character development. They don't deserve a Boromir moment & wouldn't do anything fun if they had it.

Merry Christmas DMs

This seems like a great design, can't wait to try it :)

I wanna be pooperscooper heroic though James. Let me have the pooperscooper! Jokes aside, I love how the new/current system works and unstable is a cool condition to have.

I wouldn't mind the boss having the option of pushing themselves to leave a last threat or even _redemption_ in death by coming clean on a scheme.

Merry Christmas!

An auspicious start to this vidja

I like this concept. I’ve always found “health” a bit of a wonky mechanic in any game. I think it always makes more sense to think of it in terms of stamina/energy. So you can run out and be helpless, but you’re not magically “fully healed” after one good nights sleep!!

Is there any penalty to ending combat while unstable, or what about starting combat while unstable? Maybe the adrenaline of the fight keeps you going until the fight ends, then you fall unconscious? Maybe your class resources slow down or stop generating if you start a new combat while unstable. Just thinking that this is something that your character needs to deal with, and soldiering on should be a big deal. Maybe the unstable condition is already enough. Just thoughts for your playtesting!

Doesn't matter if you say things like, "THIS IS NO LONGER THE RULE." The internet is gonna internet on you.

Loved this one!

I like the story of the fighter with 1hp trying to break down the first door of a dungeon and dying.

That's some elegant design there james

I’m sure I’m not first to point this out, and there is likely a different term for the BBEG. But they may be a directors creature that has a round to also dramatically push after reaching 0 HP. Think the eye of Sauron exploding and the tower collapsing (though obviously use that level of destruction with care). The other enemies and pissants, sure 0 hp they’re dead. But some enemies need their last attempt to thwart the heroes.

Good stuff. Thanks for the video. Love the content about the game.

Love this design! Keep up the good work, MCDM! And Happy Holidays!

My first session of 5e was in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and the first combat encounter was in the sally port tunnel against a swarm of rats. My monk was in the lead and the first attack roll against him was a crit and almost one-shot him. It would have a fairly ignoble death to be sure.

I think I'm going to implement this in my 5e game.

I had something close happen, my Druid was killed backward in one shot from the breath attack of a dragon during a run of Tomb of Annihilation. He had negative constitution so I was waiting for it to happen but I found it hilarious because it was a sneak attack from the dragon.

very elegant design

This game is gonna be elite :D

Merry Christmas! Engagement for the algorithm!

My PC's are able to sacrifice themselves to do something that is guaranteed to succeed. But is based on the class they have and what makes sense, they are approached by a deity and that will intervene in their last act. A martial is able to grapple or hold something, or fight long enough for everyone else to escape. A wizard is able tocast and hold as many concentration spells as they want, without being able to to lose concentration. A divine caster is able to heal and ressurect all their allies. a sorcerer is able to cast high damage aoe spells centered on themselves etc. And there is never any hope of ressucection because of the deal that was made

what about adding penalties to heroic sacrifices? When they are raised from the dead, their final act of taking a blow for their teammate cost them their arm. Throwing themselves in front of the evil mage's fireball has left them with an innate fear of fire. Something like this could prevent spamming of final acts with the comfort of resurrection.

Merry Christmas! 🌟

very nice, just one question: if an unstable character receive healing, does i start from 0 or from the negative?

This is great, Boromir definitely used these rules as he died :) I can see them being great for a charismatic villain: will they keep on fighting as they hit zero? Will the Heroes continue attacking, risking taking more damage? Will there be *drumroll* negociations?

Have a Heroic Christmas!

Yay; its a Christmas Miracle!

One of my favorite 5e homebrews give every class a "Last Stand" option to use whenever they would otrherwise die, with the downside that they cannot be ressurected afterwards. It's stuff like a Fighter getting to do a full action surge of attacks, all of which automatically crit, Wizard getting to cast any spell of up to one level above their highest known, Paladin smiting an enemy into a different plane for 1d12 months, or Rogue stealing *any* item from *anyone* in the fight no matter how implausible.

Nice.

Sounds awesome

Oh that's very cool!

Great vid, Merry xmas everyone! This got me thinking how much waiting on death saves sucks (im a forever DM, so never been in that position). Ive been inspired to come up with something similar for my 5e game, and interested if peoplethink its broken or not. Basically, if you hit 0HP you enter a "gravely wounded" status, until you recieve healing or die. When gravely wounded, you speed if halved and taking any action other than to take a free action, hide, dash, or disengage will result in earning Death Point. Every time you recieve damage whilst Gravely Wounded you lose no HP, but instead take a Death Point. If, at the end of your turn, your death points are greater than your Prof bonus, you die. Death points reset to 0 if you are healed above 0HP andlose the gravely wounded status. What you think guys?

Fabula Ultima has a similar mechanic for heroic sacrifice, but, it's also a system that doesn't have reserection magic(and the designer clarifies that). I think res magic takes the point away from sacrifice.

Sounds like you “Nailed It” indeed 😁

Very cool

I dig it.

How would boromir’s death play out with this system? Once the battle is over wouldn’t he just sit around waiting for someone to heal you?

The Bard would be pleased.

Im pretty sure this question was asked before but will there be a (in my case german) translation for the books? and if i got the PDFs now, will updates (and thus a possible translation) be paid for or will we have to buy the **insert language here** PDFs again? *Edits due to me not knowing how to format text on youtube

Honestly Cormac's death sounds awesome.

Engagement for the Algor Gods

Cool cool cool.