What to do when your character is killed mid-campaign

In which Dyo thinks about the afterlife of beloved characters and how they influence subsequent characters

You never forget where your character was standing, the surroundings, the cruel horror of the words that herald the death of one of your party's members. "With a gurgle of blood, Tothvar pitches to the ground, his body making a soft whomp as it falls lifelessly into the autumn leaves."* As a player-character, you may be overwhelmed: do you keep in character and mourn your fallen buddy, or do you shamelessly watch Tothvar's player to see how he reacts to his creation being 86ed from the game?

When it's you, of course, you stay strong. You keep your chin up firmly and try not to be troubled by how some people might think it's pathetic to be that connected to an imaginary character. (Spoiler alert: those people don't get to RISE to become a legend. We don't need them.) You try to stop the tears from coming, and there is a strange sense of emptiness as you realize that all of your plans for the next level, for the next Reputation point, for whether you're ever going to ask out that handsome hunter who comes to the tavern down the road in this two-bit town you've been marooned in for two months... these things won't come to pass. Alas, if you had only written that epic in which you immortalized your own exploits!

Vanitas Still Life by Pieter Claesz (1630)

So, what's next? You have two options: (1) get mad at the GM-- or the fellow player-character who killed you, pack up all the leftover pizza-- even the gross one with the slimy bell peppers, and leave immediately, and topple the table on your way out** or (2) reroll a character.

Let's assume you choose (2) reroll a character. Now, you're in mourning, no doubt, so you can be excused for hoping you can simply reroll your stats and apply it to the same character who just died. Alas, poor Yorick, though you knew him well, you must make an entirely new character. Well...not entirely new. It's perfectly plausible and reasonable to reincarnate yourself as a player in the form of a character who has one or two characteristics of your recently fallen hero. If you only change one or two characteristics, people will catch on and you will be labeled a "one-trick pony," and while all little girls and most adults and a hearty number of cartoon-loving young men love ponies, one-trick ones are the exception to the rule.

When I retired*** my first sustained character, I sought to create the exact opposite of her as best I could. It was hard because I had spent multiple years in my first character's mind space, and so my desire was always to call for a Lore check or start yodeling about runes. My new character was, to put it nicely, a meat shield. But gradually over time, she developed some mannerisms of my first character. There's a phenomenon in acting theory called ghosting, the idea that an actor carries along the "ghosts" of all her past performances--think of how when you watch Ian McKellan as Gandalf, you also may think, "Hey, there's Magneto!" at the same time, or how Christopher Lee (yes, I did just watch LOTR for the 300th time, why do you ask?) carries a veritable palimpsest of baddies that he's played over his long career along with him, so that merely the sound of his melodious voice makes you shiver in fear. That's also why Mariah Carey gets a lot of press when she goes frumpy-- as we see her in her present iteration, we are reading her through the "ghost" of her glamorous self. So too this happens in RISE, where players accumulate layers of characters, and this is particularly fun to watch if a player has to reroll a character or two mid-campaign or if you play multiple campaigns simultaneously with the same core group of players. It's wise to be aware of the effects of ghosting, and to strategically lean into your transferrable reputation (little "r"-- formal Reputations are character-bound, rather than player-specific).

"But I already made the character I like best...and she's GONE," you say quaveringly, having decided after you couldn't flip over the bespoke gaming table that maybe you should just hang around. "I'll never know love like that again!" But you might, though it will look a little different the second, or third, or nineteenth time around. My advice would be to look at your old character's FACTs and the secondary FACTs (Focus, Ancestry, Class, Theme; Features, Acumen, Competencies, Talents, respectively) and allow yourself no more than one key similarity for each FACT. So, I could choose the same ancestry as my lost character, and one of the same talents-- the benefit of which is I already "know" how those mechanics work-- but the rest of my FACTs are new (and of course, in the case of the secondary FACTs, there is opportunity to have multiple aspects in each category). And, may I add, in RISE, there's no danger of having to repeat a character because there are so many options.

David Slaying Goliath, Peter Paul Rubens (1616)

There are a few huge silver linings to having to reroll a character mid-campaign: (1) you probably have a much better idea of what's been missing in the party/what's needed, although some no-meta-gaming purists would say it's no fair to even consider that aspect; (2) if it's the first time you've played with this GM, you have a much better idea of her hobby-horses, and thus of the sorts of acumen or talents, etc. that might come in handy based on her style. (3) There's a certain joy and excitement of adding a new face to the party, and of seeing how your GM introduces you and how the party, having already coalesced, receives you. (4) Much as when you purposefully rebuild an existing character mid-campaign, you can be smarter about how you specialize, being older and wiser than you were the last time you made a character. The fifth teeny bonus--possible but not guaranteed-- is the potential to get to hear people in-game talk about your old character, and getting to experience your old character from the perspective of your new character, so that this new character takes part in building the legend of the old one... for anyone who loves legends, the process of building one reputation while extending another is a pretty wonderful thing to behold.

So, when it's your character who is splayed on his back, feet up, arms akimbo, having been extinguished like a cockroach by the RAID-can of destiny/your GM's whim, weep not for the memories****... don't let your next life pass you by, but focus instead on the great opportunities to become an even more legendary player as you rack up personae and lifetimes and RISE once again, albeit in a different form, to become a hero.

*Even at a critical and poignant juncture as the death of a character, I strongly advise GMs to be descriptive and also (maybe moreover) be certain to MAKE the noise-- not "whomp" in your regular voice, but "whomp" as a sound effect. BE the scene you wish to describe, GMs!

**Unless you play on one of those mega-heavy specialized gaming tables (all my birthday wishes combined). Not only is that too much of an insult to fine craftsmanship, but pragmatically it may be too heavy to accomplish and there would be nothing worse than making the effort and then having to leave on that note.

***In case any of my campaign-mates are reading and accusing me of being a grievous over-actor, that may be true, but I willingly will confess that my character didn't technically die, the campaign concluded, and she received a hero's ending-- but I mourned the end all the same.

****You're welcome in advance: I've practically guaranteed that this ear-worm will pop up the next time you have a character die.