Death and Dying

I found some RPG discussion forums today, and through them came across someone else's house rules for death and dying here. Essentially, it increases the amount below zero a character's hit points can go to before the character is dead, allows normal healing spells to work on a character that has died within 24 hours of death, and removes the ability to bring the dead back to life beyond that timespan completely.

While I understand not liking the revolving door of death, I'm not sure I'm ready to remove those spells just yet, and I don't know that I like normal curing spells bringing someone back from the dead, even at less than 24 hours, without the formerly-deceased also needing something to restore their mental faculties after their brain has been without oxygenated blood for so long. I dunno, I guess that might fall under the same healing spell.

I do like the idea of changing the amount below zero, though, for much the same reason as the person expresses: it reduces the lethality of a higher-level battle, where any hit sufficient to drop your character to negatives is also likely to kill outright. It also makes characters or NPCs with less than 10 hp a bit more realistic. That goblin with 4 hp and your 20 Con, 3rd level Fighter both need to hit -10 to die?

That said, I think making the "death threshold" equal to the inverse of the maximum hp is a bit much. I'm thinking more like half would be reasonable, and allow a bit more wiggle room without making it nigh-impossible to kill anyone at higher levels.

So, a third level fighter with a max of 30 hp gets dropped to -3 from a nasty critical hit. They make a save to resist falling unconscious. If successful, they are awake but still disabled, so they can't move as quick and anything more strenuous than talking causes them to take a point of damage. Unless they get their wound bound or stabilize on their own, they also take a point of damage each round, and if they do get bound it will reopen and need to be bound/stabilized again if they take any strenuous action. On top of that, any time they take damage, they have to resist passing out again. A couple of rounds resisting oblivion and still trying to fend off the enemy puts the fighter at -15. Unless help arrives swiftly, next round they'll die from blood loss.

This is extremely theatrical, allowing scenes similar to Boromir's last stand. I'll probably end up using it.

Namaste

If, a year ago, someone brought up 3D movies in conversation, the first image to pop into my head would have been the cliche 1950's crowd with the two-tone red and blue cardboard glasses. 3D was a gimmick, used to hype sub-standard movies in order to bring in audiences.

No more.

James Cameron has taken 3D technology and used it for what it should always have been: to provide a fully immersive experience within a fully detailed environment. He took a film that was fully capable of standing on its own, and enhanced it, rather than making 3D the sole selling point. 3D technology, while it may not become the standard viewing method for some time, now has a benchmark. All 3D films, probably for at least the next decade, will be compared to Avatar to gauge their opulence and detail.

Now to the film itself. Spoilers will likely abound. You have been warned.

Where to begin?

The flora and fauna of Pandora is perfectly balanced between alien and familiar. You may not know what something is called, but it looks (and acts) familiar enough that you know what it's Earth-based counterpart is, or could be, with some few exceptions.

Just by looking at the ocular anatomy, you can tell that this world is much more dangerous than Earth. Practically every creature on the planet has two sets of eyes, one facing forward and one more to the sides. If you remember your Biology, forward facing eyes are the mark of a predator, whereas side-facing eyes are a typical prey's defensive mechanism. Everything on that planet, then, is both a predator and prey. Even the Na'vi, though they lack the second set of eyes, because that lack is made up for by their unusually large, sensitive, swiveling ears.

The wildlife isn't all that's familiar. Plot elements are similar to things seen elsewhere, and although this has been used as a criticism to harp on the plotline's predictability, I believe Mr. Cameron did it right. He gave us familiar elements to associate with, first off so that we wouldn't be overwhelmed by what was unfamiliar, and second so that we would not miss too much if our eyes were overwhelmed with the details put into this fantastic world.

Still, here's what I was reminded of: Linking to the animals? Matrix, jacking in, which was further reinforced by the explanation of how everything was linked in an electric network. The flying creatures, who only bond to one rider? Dragonriders of Pern. The term "I see you" is very closely related to the one-word title up above. And the general storyline and message in general? Fern Gully for grown-ups.

This doesn't belittle the film, in my eyes. Yes, I've seen elements of it elsewhere, but not blended in this manner. And quite frankly it's about time we adults were reminded of the direction our world is going. I don't even necessarily mean what we're doing to destroy the planet. I'll leave that sermon to Al Gore. What I'm talking about is our direction as a society: our might-makes-right attitude, using violence as a default means to the end we desire. We can't even get along with other humans, so what possible hope do we have of peaceful relations with non-human sentient life?

Fern Gully started from the position that the Earth, that Nature, was salvageable, if we humans could do right by it. Mr. Cameron doesn't even give us that much credit, and I can't say I disagree. Avatar starts with Earth being devoid of Nature, perhaps completely sapped of all life, and only gives us the message that, despite our overwhelming majority of asshats, humanity can still be redeemed by the actions of those few who are willing to do right by Life in general, rather than being sheep led to the slaughter by those who had enough greed and ambition to gain apparent leadership.

I saw an article, the day before I saw the movie, that told of a trend among those who saw Avatar. Apparently, there are a number of people who have, since viewing it, become depressed or even suicidal: depressed because they could not live on Pandora, suicidal in the hope that they might be reborn as a Na'vi. It's nothing new that people who come to associate with and love a world they experience through fiction have a desire to live there, or be the people they've read about or seen in the movie. I know I spent a good amount of time in my teen years wishing I actually had a Pernese dragon to ride, so I understand the wish that Pandora were real.

And maybe it is, or a place much like it. We can't, at this point, prove its lack of existence any more than we can prove it does exist. But for the sake of that place, should it be real, I hope we never find it.