How should an ironman mode handle main character death?

[Alastor15243]

So, some people have thrown around the concept of a full-blown ironman mode where not only are deaths permanent, but you can't even restart. Now, personally, I'd love to see a mode like this implemented, but there's a perpetual issue:

What happens when the main character dies, or the main objective of the mission is failed? Having that result in a complete and total "lose hours upon hours of progress and start all over again" fail state seems... excessively harsh compared to the penalty for losing literally anyone else. But it's difficult to think of a potential alternative.

Now, some people have house rules where if the main character dies, they have to restart the map without a random member of their team. But that would be pretty tricky to implement in the actual game. I mean, I could imagine some sort of "turnwheel but with an awful price" plot device resulting in the main character being incapable of dying, but forcibly stealing the soul of one of his comrades to keep himself alive whenever he dies, but... changing the story that drastically for a single game mode would be pretty ridiculous.

Or do you think player death should represent a total end to the run on ironman mode? Should losing the lord, or the unit you're supposed to protect that chapter, or the area you're supposed to keep enemies out of, really completely end the run in this game mode?

[Captain Karnage]

Like how they're supposed to be played

If your MC dies, you delete your save file and start over from the beginning

That is how your supposed to do an iron man run

 

[magnetic_cactus]

True Ironman: Save lost, too bad. This is the best way to implement Ironman and is what, by definition, Ironman is meant to be.

Soft Ironman: MC cannot "die" but instead retreats. Can be re-used next map. MC "death" is simply not a lose condition. If you want, you can attach penalties to this (money loss, XP loss, another unit sacrificed, etc.). 

In terms of "objectives failed" moments, such as a character you need to defend being killed, you simply have to design the game around the possibility of players failing to achieve those goals. At its simplest, you block players from receiving rewards, but advance the story as necessary (perhaps the NPC you were meant to protect is depicted as injured in the next cutscene but the story can otherwise progress as needed, minus the rewards you'd get, for example); in a more complex, branching game you could have the storyline adapt to accommodate at least some of these fail states.

[Interdimensional Observer]

If the lord dies, just put the scar visibly on your record. Ironman is purely for show and challenge. Sure having a "1" for Game Overs on your record doesn't stop you from completing the game, but everyone will know your Ironman wasn't perfect in some way.

[Eltosian Kadath]

It depends upon the tradition you are calling back to with your iron man mode. If you are calling on the more modern interpretation for which the name iron man comes from you have to start over the whole save file. If you are harkening back to the way Kaga intended the games to be played it would simply restart the map with no penalties applied.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

It depends upon the tradition you are calling back to with your iron man mode. If you are calling on the more modern interpretation for which the name iron man comes from you have to start over the whole save file. If you are harkening back to the way Kaga intended the games to be played it would simply restart the map with no penalties applied.

The issue there would be that you could then avoid having to lose anyone on ironman by suiciding your main character whenever anyone dies.

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

The issue there would be that you could then avoid having to lose anyone on ironman by suiciding your main character whenever anyone dies.

On the other hand if things are getting bad enough due to unit death that they are having a hard time keeping their lord alive, a penalty would have all the malice of kicking them in the groin while they are already on the ground.

I suppose a compromise between the two approaches would be having a game over forces you to permanently lower the difficulty mode from Ironman to Classic to continue the save file.

[Alastor15243]

10 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

On the other hand if things are getting bad enough due to unit death that they are having a hard time keeping their lord alive, a penalty would have all the malice of kicking them in the groin while they are already on the ground.

I suppose a compromise between the two approaches would be having a game over forces you to permanently lower the difficulty mode from Ironman to Classic to continue the save file.

That... could work. That would be a nice option, actually.

[Punished Dayni]

@Saint Rubenio probably has one of the tougher compromises: anyone who dies before the lord in said map stays dead.

I'll be honest, I couldn't do that to myself.