Who knows? You could write the method that ends up getting adopted permanently at so many tables that WotC puts it in a D&D book and pretends they invented it.

...but in an encouraging way. /thread

And if you're designing TTRPGs, try to throw in a little something to make sure de-agencied players don't stay that way, or can't truly happen in the first place. We have precious little work in that design space (not zero!) despite PC death being about as old as the hobby itself.

One way or another, people will feel a lot better about setbacks and unexpected story elements knowing that nothing can happen in the story that will make them unable to keep telling the story with their friends.

If you are running a TTRPG, talk with your table about this. Even if you currently have a no-PC-death agreement in place, introducing fallback plans may re-open that possibility space.

This even applies outside of the finality of death! Sometimes your character suddenly just winds up in a situation where it makes the most sense for them to be somewhere else for a while. Distressingly few games have tools to entertain players who suddenly find themselves without an agent.

To be clear, I am astoundingly in favor of having plans for "what does our friend do while they do not have a character in play" so that you can have a game where main characters can be removed from the narrative with little forethought.

If you are going to tell someone that they can no longer participate in the activity they put so much effort into, you'd better have an agreement in place or be ready to lose a friend.

The tricky thing with character death is that, in the vast majority of TTRPGs, having an alive character is a completely non-negotiable prerequisite to playing the game, the activity that everyone present blocked hours out of their week many times over to do.

Some people say that an unexpected death can absolutely ruin a story (it can also make an incredible story but I acknowledge it's a huge gamble). There's lots of other variants of the argument, but too often the conversation ignores what I think is the most important point in all this.

There's an evergreen argument about handling player character death at tables. Some people say that the conflict feels meaningless if the PCs are protected (the incredible popularity of action movies certainly goes against this argument, but okay).

The number of old folktunes that were once stupid little ditties about banging is probably more immense than anyone could ever imagine. If you ever feel rootless and adrift, connect with your ancestors - listen to a piece of music, and make up a little lyric about banging.

Diving down the same wikihole I have also discovered that the tune we now use for Auld Lang Syne is one that the collector had originally used for one of the other poems in the collection: Comin Thro' the Rye, a song that is about...banging, apparently en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comin'_...

you even gave her a luxury ball

Anyway your FatT fact of the day is that the name of the shield character, Antistrophe, translates to "opposing turn", which I think means that either he's going to become a villain or it's just a joke about parrying or they thought it sounded cool.

I've only gotten a barber shave once, but it did include a warm towel, so I think it's pretty common.