: Re: Ways for main character to influence world following their death The main character of a story dies before the story itself ends. Nothing new here, you can keep a story interesting following

@XinRu607

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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 (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.

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.

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

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