The Ultimate Responsibility

Matthew McFarland

It’s a fact of life, in real life as well as in games. It’s probably a defining moment, one way or another, in anyone’s existence, player or character. I’m talking about death.

A lot of gaming groups, and in fact a lot of games, take a rather cavalier attitude towards death. In particular, they take a flippant attitude towards killing. You can kill orcs, no problem, because they’re Lawful Evil, right? You can kill bushels of fomori in Werewolf, but they’re of the Wyrm anyhow. You can kill normal folks in Vampire, but hey, “a beast I am lest a beast I become”, yeah?

Yeah, right.

All bets being in, I wouldn’t count on anyone reading this essay actually knowing what it feels like to end a human life (and if you have, I honestly don’t wish to know about it). But I’d wager even money that most of you have played characters who have killed. And in this essay, we’re going to talk about that. We’re going to discuss how, as a Storyteller, you can heighten the impact of that event. And we’re definitely going to talk about the repercussions of that act.

What we aren’t going to talk about is games that make light of death, like Paranoia and other dark humor games. Not to say that there’s no merit in such things — hell, all comedy is based on pain — but that’s not the focus here. So, apply the advice contained herein to your chronicles only if it’s thematically appropriate, OK?
Repercussions

So where to start? First of all, let’s discuss the ramifications of killing, in modern-day life.

Did you know, for example, that people are hard-wired against killing each other? It happens that when people kill, even in self-defense, they often wind up in deep depression or dead by suicide. Unless you’re mentally ill, killing another person is a terrible thing to have to face every day (and even if you are mentally ill, it’s often not pleasant). I used to be of the “well, humans are just animals, so it’s no big thing when they die.” And then I had an experience a few years back that shook me.

My wife had a friend whom she hadn’t seen in a while and that I’d never met. Said friend showed up and we all sat around at a coffee house and chatted. I disliked him right away — bad vibe, I suppose. Anyway, one of the things we talked about was that he’d supposedly been assaulted a few years back and that he and some friends had killed the guy responsible and dumped him in the river in their city.

I didn’t feel anything at first. But later, the conversation still gnawed at me (and continues to do so, frankly). I had never considered — or really, been faced with — the inherent wrongness of killing before. I had blown hot air about how if someone attacked my wife or me or broke into my place, I’d kill him, but I had never thought about what that really meant. And when I did, I was pretty sickened by the implications. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t defend myself or my wife if I had to. It just means that I hope I never have to make that kind of choice.

So there’s the psychological impact of taking a life, which is not inconsiderable. And then there’s the legality. In some countries you can be executed within a week for murder. In some countries it’s legal to certain degree. In the States, you can be executed, but it takes years of legal hoop-jumping by the end of which the accused is generally glad to die.

What does this mean to a Storyteller? It means that you need to think twice before allowing “Assassin” or “serial killer” characters. There are repercussions to killing, legal, spiritual and psychological. If you wish to include any kind of spiritual aspect to the game, that’s your business (and a function of the game involved, of course). The legal consequences depend on how well the character covers her tracks and what the legal system’s like. And, of course, the psychological angle depends on the character in question. But I’d suggest nightmares, especially if the character doesn’t come from a background that encompasses violence. I’d encourage media dogging the character, if she was caught and released, or subtle, frequent hints that people know about the murder and are going to expose her (those hints might not be accurate, but they’ll reinforce the paranoia that the character feels). If there’s a system for the character’s morality (like the Humanity system in Vampire), play it to the proverbial bone and don’t just brush it off as a mechanic. Role-play the heck out of it.

OK, Matt, you ask, but how do I role-play this? I mean, I’ve never killed anyone and all I know is what I see in the movies. To which I respond, “Read a book.” No, seriously, to which I respond, “wing it.” Try to imagine how the character (not the player) would feel if she killed someone. Take into account her history, the culture in which she lives, the circumstances of the killing, how she could rationalize it, what impact it has on her daily life, and anything else you think is important. Import the details of the killing into the character’s quirks — if the character stabs her lover with a pair of scissors and accidentally kills him, you can bet she’ll never look at scissors the same way again.

And the rest of the group isn’t out of this, either. How would you feel hanging out with a killer? More importantly, how would your character feel? Would he get high-and-mighty about it? Would he feel the guilt, too? Would he consider turning the killer in? Would he start treating the killer with kid gloves, so as not to damage her fragile psyche (or set her off)?

After a character kills someone, everything should change. It should color every aspect of the character’s life. An example:

A player in a Mage game I’m running as of this writing shot at a car’s gas tank. The car exploded (this can happen in real life, it just isn’t as easy as the movies make it out to be). Four people died, all of them NPCs, all of them people that the characters were fighting. One of them had just taken a tire iron to one of the characters and knocked him out cold. Another of these antagonists had shot another of the characters and, while she wasn’t dead, she was close.

In retrospect, how much difference did that make to the character who blew up the car? Not a damned bit. She was still wracked by guilt for the whole thing. Her career and the circumstances allowed her to avoid arrest, but she lost her career and everything she’d worked to build. The character faced the spirits of the men she’d killed (in a Seeking, for you Mage-o-philes) and promised to atone. The player was in tears for most of that Seeking. She had a good bead on what she’d done. That character will never be the same — and that’s the way it should be after a character kills.

The legal repercussions of killing can be hellish, and can indeed be enough to end a chronicle for a character (life in prison is exactly that). But that should be the easy part. The character’s life is now divided into two parts, before the killing and after it. Everything after it, every thought or breath she draws, should be tainted by that act. No matter if it was justified. No matter if you take a month of downtime between that story and the next one. It’s still there — that person is still dead.

Characters Who Kill

We’ve all played them. The warrior, the assassin, the elder vampire, the berserk werewolf, and so on. The characters who killed as part of their concept. The characters who are “stone cold killers.” And there’s nothing wrong with that. Violence is part and parcel to most RPGs. Call it what you want; a chance to exorcise demons, tame unchecked aggression, or whatever. The fact is that role-playing evolved from wargames, and that means that combat, and therefore death, is a fact of the hobby much of the time.

But! I can hear it now. But Matt, you work for White Wolf! That’s the game system where you play tragically hip monsters who kill people all the time! Not on my watch. White Wolf games are supposedly “Game for Mature Minds.” And I’ve got news for you (and the adults in the audience will verify this): Taking responsibility for your actions is mature. Trying to weasel out is not. Played as intended (almost typed “correctly” — it’s late), White Wolf’s games encourage this kind of attention to ramifications and so on. Frankly, I think most games could benefit by it.

So, in light of all this unpleasant talk about responsibility and killing changing everything, what if you want to play a character who doesn’t have any particular problem with killing? What, you might ask, would I say to a player who puts such a concept before me?

I’d say the following:

• How many? Is the character a mass murderer, a hired assassin, or a thrill-killer? Perhaps a gangster or a mercenary? A solider, or a cop? How many people had she killed? Supposedly the impact lessens with each death, but that doesn’t mean there’s no impact. If the player wants to play someone who kills for fun or for money and doesn’t seem to appreciate the seriousness of the act, you’ve got two choices. You can veto the concept (and perhaps reevaluate if you want the player in your group) or allow it and bring the full legal might of the game’s setting to bear.

• The first time. We all remember the first time. Who was the character’s first “victim?” What were the circumstances? Get all the detail you can from the player on this. Then use it in flashbacks.

• Why? Is being a killer integral to the character? Why? Remind the player that this isn’t Dig-Dug; you don’t get points for how many enemies you kill, so there’s no point in starting with a head start. If the killer angle is necessary for the concept, for a good reason, then you can probably safely allow it.

Storytelling Murder

“This is murder, Billy,” says Dustin Hoffman in Outbreak, “Any way you fucking slice it.” And that brings me into yet another list (I like these, remember?).

• Don’t kill everybody. Bad guys should not be disposable. Go read my essay on NPCs again and look at the bits on antagonists. In the aforementioned Mage game, one of the characters saved the life of a hated enemy who then apologized and vowed to lay off the character. You don’t have to end every session with a bloody combat. Antagonists shouldn’t disappear by dying every time, ditto NPCs that you’re done with. When someone dies, they’re gone. Which brings me to the next point…

• The really real world. There ain’t no coming back, right? Well, sometimes there is, but for purposes of this essay, there ain’t. No random clerics to resurrect people. No Doctor Fix-It (as mentioned in Winter_Heart’s essay on player character death). When someone dies, he dies. If you cheapen that by having death be a reversible condition, you’re cheating yourself and the players. Orpheus tried to bring someone back from the dead. It was an epic, and ultimately tragic journey, and so should it be if the players try it. (I’m not a fan of resurrection spells, except in video games.)

• Guns. Guns are capricious little things. My wife, a physical therapist, has a patient — a 13-year-old girl — who was shot by some jerk. The guy put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Her spinal cord was damaged, but she can walk now and is improving. On the other hand, a guy from my hometown (not someone I knew) was shot in the butt and bled to death in minutes. People complain about the Storyteller system being too inconsistent with gun damage, but the fact is that not everyone who’s shot is going to die, and not everyone who’s shot in the arm is going to live.

In general, though, only point a gun at something you want to die. Characters and players can live by that rule.

• Follow-through. If someone dies, play it up. Police inquiry, hearings, trials, sentences, funerals, angry relatives calling or attacking the character, and so on. If the dead don’t stay in their graves, an angry ghost might be good (but do not overdo it. This is another cheapening effect if done badly). It’s not over after the guy is buried. This should haunt the character forever, and not just psychologically.

• Mechanics. Depending on what system you’re using, there are many ways to represent the effects of killing mechanically. A reduction in Willpower, higher success thresholds (difficulties, target numbers, whatever) due to depression, overwhelming feelings of guilt drive the character to suicidal zeal, and so forth. Make it tangible, especially if the player is having trouble role-playing it (deliberately or no).

With all of this in mind, perhaps you’ll look at the antagonists a little differently when you sit down to game again. They have every bit as much right to exist as your characters. Whether your characters respect that or not is an important part of the chronicle — and will certainly affect how the chronicle ends. Taking a life is truly the ultimate responsibility, and it’s important to consider what that really means to your character. Is it a chance to score some treasure, or is it the snuffing out of another’s light? And, more importantly, which makes for a better story?

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