The Three Deaths Of Your Player-Character

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...

How I Met Your Dungeon Master

One of the (many) reasons I loved the sitcom How I Met Your Mother was its core reliance on one of my favourite narrative tools: the unreliable narrator.

The entire show, in a nutshell, was a selection of anecdotes that the character Ted was telling his two children in 2030 building up to the moment that he met their mother (the clue's in the title).

This gave the show the ability to take 'pauses' mid-episode, rewind time, tell stories multiple times from different viewpoints (through the filter of how they were relayed to Ted) and generally play around with the Truth of "what really happened".

It also allowed for stories-within-stories as characters, already in Ted's story of the week, then recounted their own (sometimes equally unreliable) accounts of something else that happened to them.

One of the other reasons
I loved the show

These 'stories-within-stories' then gave those characters the chance to break the fourth wall and talk directly to their audience (who are technically the primary characters of the show rather than us, the viewers, if you follow me).

But could you simulate this in a roleplaying game?

Does it muck around too much with the unspoken social contract that everything the Games Master tells his players is fact (in some shape or form)?

Would just one of your players be your "Ted" (i.e. the character who has achieved his GOAL and is now telling the tale of HOW he achieved it)? Or could everyone in your game be a "Ted"?

I realise there are probably modern/indie story games that use a model, at least vaguely, resembling this story structure, but could it work in a more classical, old school-style game environment?

I'm guessing not for something like Call of Cthulhu or Dungeons & Dragons as success is never guaranteed, but there must be some systems - and genres - this would work with (most superhero games? Cinematic Unisystem?).

As ever I welcome your opinions and feedback.

Barney The Bunny (2012 - 2025)

Barney in 2012

MAY 7, 2012 - JANUARY 29, 2025

It's really sad and peculiar no longer having my usual morning routine of feeding Barney first thing, but on Wednesday I found our beloved bunny had died in his sleep.

We buried him later that day and are planning a small memorial, with flowers and a statue, to mark his grave site.

He was over 12-and-a-half years old; in human terms that's about 90.

Named after my favourite character in How I Met Your Mother, Barney came into our lives on July 7, 2012, when we picked him up from Pets At Home in Tunbridge Wells and brought him back to his own residence in the garden of our old home near Tonbridge station.

At the time, the general advice was to get a single rabbit, as - we were told - a pair of males would fight, but this thinking has since changed.

The small size of our garden meant there was no convenient way to attach a covered run to his hutch, which therefore necessitated me lifting him out of his hutch and manually placing him in the run every time we thought he'd want to stretch his legs. Usually, though, he would sit in the run and glare.

In those early years, he was no fan of being handled.

Barney's original hutch

A fit and sturdy rabbit - a blue Netherland Cross, half-dwarf - the only injury he ever suffered was a very early (even before his first birthday) hind claw snagging incident that our wonderful vets resolved promptly.

Otherwise, he was very hardy and healthy, with the only real sign of his advancing years being the gradual loss of his eye-sight, beginning in 2021, but even then that didn't seem to bother him as he knew he was safe within the confines of his hutch and run, and that he would never want for food and water.

Every Christmas, he would travel with us to Rachel's parents' house, where they had a holiday home set up for him - his own dedicated hutch - and, as a member of our family, would get his own Santa's sack of gifts (usually food-themed). 

Barney (and Alice) have personalised gift sacks from Father Christmas

Barney's holiday home in Rachel's parents' garden

A couple of years after we took in Barney, we adopted Alice and she loved him from their first meeting. Every chance she got, she'd want to play chase with him or stroke him with her paw and give him a good lick (puppy kisses) behind the ears.

Best of Friends: Alice with her 'brother from another mother'

When we moved house in 2019, Barney found himself living in a much larger hutch, with an attached run, and he really took to it.

He definitely chilled out a lot, and you could tell he felt comfortable knowing he was very secure in this new environment.

Barney's luxurious new home in our new garden

Enjoying the expanse of his new run

He lived through boiling hot summers and wet summers, hurricane-strength winds and snow storms, visiting dogs (much larger - and more excitable - than Alice) and unwelcome foxes, but nothing seemed to bother our Barney.

I also discovered that there are few sights more adorable than a rabbit stretching itself and yawning.

Rachel's best friend Aime also included Barney in our family gifts (above and below)

Celebrating the Year of The Rabbit in January 2023

As he grew older, his fur got a bit tuftier and lately I'd noticed, under this fur, he felt like he was getting thinner, even though he was eating well and was still quite fiesty.

His passing, although not totally unexpected given his age, has left a huge bunny-shaped hole in my broken heart. Both Rachel and I were really upset, and Alice was very confused as to what was going on - thinking of her giving him kisses because she thought he was asleep still brings a tear to my eye.

Barney was loved by all and will be missed terribly.

On his 12th birthday, last year