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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/5742
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/5742
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

## Option 1: I'm Back!

For an IF game, probably the _easiest_ way to allow character death is to allow some kind of backup, or a chance to be restored to life. Examples include:

- **Cloning Technology** - Your character has been cloned (or can be), and when the original dies, a clone takes his place. This method is used in the classic SF/humor RPG _Paranoia_, specifically to let characters be killed off constantly.
- **Time Travel** - In a time-travel story, sometimes the time-travel technology lets you "come in from the future" and make another attempt if "things go wrong."
- **Beat Death** - Some RPGs solve the death problem by making it simply an extra challenge: dying just takes you to a different level, which you must beat, and then you can return and continue with the game. So you could have a "Hell" level or a "Deal with the Devil" challenge or some such, allowing you to return to life once you beat the extra level. (I remember the _Neverwinter Nights_ module _Witch's Wake_ did this.)
- There's also the brilliant use of story-as-a-flashback in [Zarf's _Spider and Web_](http://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/tangle/) (_HIGHLY_ recommended!). Obviously you don't want to copy such a unique structure wholesale, but the unusual approach may give you ideas for similarly oddball structures that might work for you.

## Option 2: I'm Still Here!

This seems to be more what you had in mind - ways to exert influence despite having, shall we say, shed the mortal coil. Do bear in mind, though, that creating a whole new mode of play can be quite a chore for an interactive-fiction game! If you like any of these ideas, you might consider basing the _entire_ game around the concept, rather than adding the extra mode in as an odd extension.

Some ideas:

- **Ghostly Haunting** - Your own suggestion, and quite effective for your purposes. A ghost has limited interaction with the world - how limited is up to you. A ghost can certainly continue to wander around; maybe it's more limited in what it can touch and manipulate; maybe it can't speak easily to others. Maybe it also has new powers - like walking through walls, or possessing NPCs. 
  - A particular variation could set the player as the incorporeal sidekick of an "independent" NPC. Kind of the reverse of [what Jeremy Freese did with _Violet_](http://iplayif.com/?story=http://mirror.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/Violet.zblorb).
- **Reincarnation** - A more mystical/fantastical approach to having a backup character would be reincarnating as someone or something else.
- **Guidance From Beyond** - Set up some way to give advice to some sidekick character - dreams and visions; flashback memories; a will; a prophecy. You can set this up so the "advice" is retroactively assumed to have already been provided.

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Hope this helps. If I have any other ideas, I'll add them on later.

Original score: 3