Bosman’s Typology of Player Death

A model for the death of a player's character in games

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This week we are talking about death, and how death is represented in different game designs. But first, some big news!!!

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Death as motivator in games

While not present in every game, it’s notable just how many games feature some sort of player death. It’s been present from the earliest arcade games, where you might get three lives per coin dropped into the machine. It’s a common feature of action video games like Diablo, Helldivers, Doom, and Baldur’s Gate. And of course it features in many classic TTRPGs.

In games with direct combat, “not dying” is a key driver of the action in the game:

• In long running TTRPG campaigns of Dungeons & Dragons, players build up characters over time, potentially over the course of many years. Death is always looming, but there is a tacit agreement that players aren’t killed every week. If they are killed, there might be some chance to bring them back from the dead.

• As we saw with poor Therg fighting skeletons, combat in MÖRK BORG is lethal. It’s not uncommon to have player characters die in the course of an adventure. Many times it is the attempt to preserve the character’s life that drives decisions and actions in game.

• Board games at a higher operational level (e.g. area control games) where the player controls many troops also have death present, but it is usually abstracted in some way. Blood Rage even provides incentives for glorious death in battle.

• Players make decisions in dungeon crawl board games to prevent their characters from dying. Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape characters are “knocked out” when they reach zero Health tokens, and may be revived with Lifebringer tokens. No more tokens, and the quest ends in defeat.

With all the different ways death can be handled in games, is there a better way we can talk about each one? Is there a model for player death in games?

Yes! Let’s explore Frank Bosman’s attempt to create a typology of death…

Bosman’s Typology of Player Death

Death Narratives: A Typology of Narratological Embeddings of Player’s Death in Digital Games (Bosman, 2018) systematically explores the various ways player death is handled in video games, citing specific examples.

It explains why death is important in games:

Ludologically, the player’s death is one of the most prominent feedback systems of almost all digital games. It communicates to the player his or her (in)ability to achieve the positive goals that the game has set (Aarseth 1997).

This view of “death as feedback system” can be seen in the common “punishments” suffered by the player when their character dies. Death means losing XP, gold, levels, equipment, or having to do a corpse run to regain your loot.

The death feedback system isn’t limited to just the video games in the article, and it’s easy to see the parallels in tabletop games. There are entire systems created to reward and/or punish players for playing dice with death in TTRPGs.

Bosman divides death in games into three major types:

1. Embedding: Actual death.

2. Embedding: Death avoided.

3. No explicit narratological embedding.

Each type has a few subdivisions (e.g. 1A, 1B, 1C), so in all there are seven types given in the article. Let’s take a look…

Type 1: Embedding: Actual death.

In a Type 1 Death, the game recognizes death as real and the player’s character actually dies in the game. This is different from games with permadeath because there is a narratological reason the player can continue to play. Those reasons are broken into three subdivisions:

• Type 1A - Cloning/Copying: While the player’s original character has died, they are replaced with an exact copy or clone of the original. Play continues and the character usually retains their memories. Bosman cites Borderlands and Bioshock.

• Type 1B - Parallel universe: This is similar to the cloning/copying type, but the new character is pulled from a parallel universe or another dimension. They may not retain their memories of the original because they are a separate entity.

• Type 1C - Playing the next avatar: Your character dies, so you are given another. This is the explanation for reinforcements after you die in Helldivers 2. It also is close to how TTRPG funnels like Foul work.

In each case, while the new character might retain their memories and gear from the previous one, the key aspect is that death is not prevented. The character did really die in the game, but there was a way to continue playing.

Type 2: Embedding: Death avoided.

In a Type 2 Death, the game recognizes death as a motivator but allows the player to avoid death in the game. Workarounds are applied to save the character at the last minute or otherwise explain how the character didn’t actually die:

• Type 2A - Simulation: It was all just a dream! Either an explicit technological simulation as in Assassin’s Creed or some other method, the death never really occurred in the world of the game.

• Type 2B - Saved by external force: At the last second someone grabs the character’s hand and prevents them from falling in the pit. Some sort of divine (or GM) intervention prevents the death from occurring.

The player’s actions led to a situation where the character should have died, but is saved via deus ex machina. The player keep’s playing because the character never died.

Type 3: No explicit narratological embedding.

In a Type 3 Death, no explicit narrative reason is given for how the player’s death works or how they can continue to play again. The character dies, but the player is welcome to try again:

• Type 3A - Progress preserved: The classic “You have died.” screen may appear, but you just restart and try again. Perhaps some penalty is imposed (e.g. lost gear or coins) but you can jump back in and play again. The game doesn’t explain why or how this is possible.

• Type 3B - Progress lost: As opposed to Type 3A, in this type all progress is lost. You might have a limited number of retries, but in general these rogue-like games force the player to start over from the beginning. Often called permadeath.

While these two types might seem to be opposites (progress preserved vs. progress lost), the key feature is that no in-game, narrative explanation is given for how you are able to play the game again after death.

A note on permadeath

Bosman gives a definition of permadeath (i.e. Type 3B) while discussing Zombi, a video game where the player is replaced with the next avatar when they die (Type 1C):

Since permadeath ludologically means the destruction of the player’s progress as well as all the player’s items and possessions beyond any means of recovery, the death of the player’s avatar in Zombi only constitutes a temporary setback for the player, who is perfectly able, and is even simulated by the game’s narrator and mechanics, to find and retake his or her possessions.

Permadeath has seen a renaissance lately in rogue-like games such as Hades, The Binding of Isaac, and Slay the Spire.

The definition gets a little messy when it comes to tabletop games. A game like Mini Rogue certainly seems to have permadeath. In TTRPGs where ways to resurrect players exist, however, it could be argued that they don’t actually have permadeath.

Putting the Bosman Typology to work

So how can we use Bosman’s Typology of Player Death in game design? I can think of a few ways:

1. Make death meaningful: Limiting your designs to Type 3A means, “the implicit death narrative of such games is that dying is utterly meaningless.” This typology serves as a starting point to think about how to make death more meaningful in your games, giving you at least seven options.

2. Analyze the games you enjoy: Like the kinds of fun and layers of theme, this typology is one more tool to help dissect games that you love. Knowing why you enjoy a game can help the design process for making your own games.

3. Bridge the gap between video and tabletop game design: It’s easy to think that video games and tabletop games are entirely different things, but the underlying game design principles are often the same. Exploring a video game based model like Bosman’s in tabletop design can spark new ideas and ways of thinking.

This model, like all the others, is one more tool in your design toolbox!

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Some models are useful: Game design advice is helpful (e.g. avoid player elimination), but models can change the way we think about games. They give us the tools to better analyze and discuss the games we love.

• Player death is a good motivator: Once you look for potential death as a motivator of player’s actions and choices in a game, it’s hard to miss. It shows up in so many video games, board games, and TTRPGs. That’s because it continues to be an effective feedback system.

• Consider stealing from video games: I’ve mentioned stealing boss fight mechanisms from video games before, and countless other opportunities exist. It works the other way too with stealing the best mechanisms from TTRPGs.

What do you think? Which one of the Bosman Typology Deaths is the one you prefer in your games? Are there types that only work in video games and not tabletop games?

— E.P. 💀

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