Defeat (PSR Supplement)

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As a protag, you are defeated when one of three criteria are met:

• You are forced to lose a Hit Die when you have none remaining. This most often occurs by dropping to 0 hit points.
• You suffer massive damage.
• You experience a dramatic death.

Finding defeat should never be the goal, but the risk of defeat gives weight and meaning to the decisions players are forced to make. The less repercussions a decision has, the less meaningful it is, and the less satisfying the game can feel. Thus these rules treat defeat as a real risk that is always a possibility.

When exactly happens when you face defeat is left ambiguous in these rules, as it is best decided by your narrator and the world they cultivate.

Defeat doesn't necessarily result in death, but it always results in something best avoided. The rest of this page details several different possible repercussions for your defeat.

Sudden Death

The most obvious answer is that a defeated character dies with no chance of returning. The player forced to either make a new character to be introduced later, or assume control of an NPC that is already known to the party.

If the campaign has character levels, it is recommended that the player is permitted to create a character who starts at a level equal to the lowest level of the surviving party members. This is still a heavy burden that makes defeat an outcome worth avoiding, but prevents the player from potentially feeling "useless" for being so much weaker than the other players.

Even in such a gritty world, it is recommended to use the ghost option—described below—until the player's new character is introduced to the party.

This option is particularly egregious if the entire party is defeated at once. With everyone making new characters, it might be like starting an entirely new campaign.

Arguably, it is more satisfying for a player to have their protag's story continue with drawbacks, than it is for that story to abruptly end. Thus the remaining options presented here assume the protag or at least the protag's soul continues to persist in some form.

Guardian Spirit

Adding a guardian spirit to a campaign can improve party cohesion, prevent untimely deaths, and make the world feel more video game-like. One provides perhaps the most generous repercussion for defeat.

If using this option, your narrator assigns one guardian spirit to your party either candidly or in secret. This might be mentioned in passing during character creation, or it might be a role-play scene that takes place near the start of your campaign. In some cases your guardian spirit may not be revealed until their help is needed.

The party is be bound together by the supernatural benefits afforded to them by this guardian spirit. Guardian spirits can take any number of forms, from powerful celestials to wise and ancient trees. A guardian spirit has a corporeal form, and isn't an outright deity.

Typically your guardian spirit is on your side without strong motives. It may overall be a force of good or even evil, but generally does not expect specific behavior in exchange for its blessings. As a gently encouraging parent, the spirit typically wants you to do your best—whatever that means for you. This is not necessarily the case for your spirit, however. Your narrator might portray a guardian that has specific motives, secret goals, or even one that is outright greedy.

Your guardian spirit may provide blessings, items, or divine guidance. Such is most likely when you accomplish great deeds or reach new milestones in your campaign. Above all however what a guardian spirit provides is protection.

A guardian spirit is always mystically aware of whether you are alive or dead. If you die, your guardian spirit has the option to teleport you to a safe place—either the last place you finished downtime, or the guardian spirit's own location—where you are revived with 1 hit point. The other protags will be teleported to this location as well, unless they consciously resist the effect. However, this revival greatly drains the spirit's power. Often it results in the party losing a blessing, or losing a blessing they would have received in the future. A magic item bestowed upon you by the spirit might lose its magic permanently, for example, or you might lose progress to your next character level. The exact loss is determined by your narrator. A guardian spirit's power is not infinite, and if revival is used too often your spirit might be unable to save you from death—or simply choose not to do so.

The exact capabilities of a guardian spirit are meant to be mysterious, so there is no defined stat block. It can often make the most sense narratively for your guardian to be unable to move, such as a living tree or a literal statue, which explains why the guardian does not accompany on adventures. A guardian is never invincible, and if yours is killed you lose all their blessings. Of course a guardian's revival becomes impossible as well.

Capture

Rather than leave you to die, the enemies seize your helpless body with the intent of keeping you alive—for at least a little bit longer. Depending on the nature of the enemies that defeated you, you might be held for ransom, you might be kept alive to be cooked like a lobster, or you might be the host for a mindflayer parasite or other horrifying experiments, among many other possibilities.

Between your defeat and when you regain consciousness in captivity, you received the benefits of a break—so you have at least half of your hit points.

Most likely, all your useful items are taken. Your presumed goal will simply be to escape with your life, and properly recover later.

Ghost

If defeat does result in your death, you have the option to become a ghost. Choosing to become a ghost means you have some unfinished business in this world, and are not ready to move on. If you decide to not become a ghost, your resurrection may become impossible.

While you are a ghost, you have no corporeal body, but can still observe your allies from the afterlife. You still have a turn in encounters and phases, but the only action you can take is Help to give one of your allies advantage — help so subtle that your ally may not even consciously notice the spiritual aid from beyond.

While you're a ghost, anything which affects undead can affect you. It is possible that you are able to communicate with your living allies if they have magic or other means of contacting spirits and the dead. If any of your allies also become ghosts, you can communicate with them directly.

Generally, you remain a ghost until you have a normal protag to play again—whether that's through reincarnation, resurrection, or moving on to an entirely new character. When the latter happens, your previous character's ghost finally ascends to the afterlife.

Undeath

Depending on the capabilities of the party, it may be possible to raise a deceased protag as a zombie or other form of corporeal undead—at least until life can be properly restored. In many cases this may be easier than true resurrection.

The player in control of the protag can control the undead creature, within the confines of whatever effect raised the dead.

Reincarnation

In this instance reincarnation involves taking a character's soul and memories, then transferring them to a magically created new body, often one of a different lineage or possibly even a different creature type.

Though not required, it is recommended for any such magic to give the character new, random ability scores and potentially a randomized lineage. The character retains items and benefits like class levels.

Resurrection

The holy grail every adventurer wants after their death. Depending on the world cultivated by your narrator, resurrection might be impossible—or become an exponentially greater ordeal the longer the body has been dead, or the greater damage has been dealt to a body. For example resurrection after only 1 minute might be a moderate cost, whereas resurrection after 1 day has a severe cost, and resurrection after 1 week is entirely unknown. In any case completely reversing death is something that shouldn't be taken lightly, nor easily achieved.