Reading The Three Deaths Of Conan, from 1990's The Savage Sword Of Conan The Barbarian issue 176, my mind began to ponder the role-playing potential of the situation our Cimmerian hero found himself in.
Penned by Chuck Dixon and Gary Kwapisz, The Three Deaths sees Conan ensnared by a sorcerer who then taunts him with predictions of his ultimate fate, extrapolated from Tarot-like cards - the first three of which presage grizzly deaths (or, in one case, a 'living death').
In the comic, each of these possible futures is played out as a story-within-the-story, so could you do this with a player-character in your game?
In a sense I see this as a variation on my "How I Met Your Mother" thought-experiment, but with the position of narrator shifting from one of the players to a powerful NPC (in this case, a mighty sorcerer).
This set-up would also, I guess, work better in a one-on-one situation with the player running a high-level character he really has a vested interest in.
The DM - as the mage - would draw a number of 'cards' and then play out, with the PC, a mini-scenario that is a possible 'future' for the character. Clearly it would have to be a particularly gruelling scenario, although not unbelievably biased, that the character would have only a slim chance of surviving.
Would you - as DM - have pre-designed these scenarios or would you feel brave enough to really draw cards from a pack and wing a scenario, based on your knowledge of the character and player?
Obviously, none of the damage the character sustains during this "vision" will be "real" - but what rewards would the character gain? Possibly experience points - for having 'lived through' the moment - but also some circumstantial bonus to future die rolls should he ever find himself in a situation that mirrors the scenario that the mage claimed was his possible future.
Perhaps this is a bit too "new school" for us "old school" grognards, but I could see this being an interesting diversion during an established campaign when not all the players can make it one evening.
In the comic, the sorcerer drew a fourth card, which he never got to see, that showed Conan wearing a crown and sitting on a throne...
Hmm...this is something I want to put some thought into! It seems great for 1-DM-1-player games, which is a lot of what I play now. (It makes me think of Force visions and similar phenomena in Star Wars...)
ReplyDeletePlease let me know if you get any mileage out of this. The more I think about the idea, the more I accept that it would probably work best as a "one-on-one" scenario.
DeleteI like your Star Wars angle.