2. Bring Out Yer Dead
Pratchett/Kirby/Corgi BooksWe've played around with hypothetical character choices and so on, but there is one Discworld character which hasn't been touched on, purely because his presence in the game is so essential that he deserves his own entry. We're speaking, of course, of Death. The reaper man. Figure in black, slicing the night on his snow white steed, Binky. While the various key characters slot into their own interlinking sections of Discworld canon, Death is (fittingly) the only constant. This scythe-wielding antihero plays a major role in a number of the books (like Mort and Reaper Man), other times he makes only a brief cameo, but he is the one character who is universally loved by the Discworld readership. When his trademark small caps-stylised dialogue makes an appearance on the page, it's like an old friend coming home. This means that the developers will need to come up with the perfect way to incorporate this ethereal horseman of the apocalypse into the framework of the game. We'll cope with a contrived guest appearance from Harry King, Detritus, Mr. Slant and the rest of the secondary cast, but Death deserves special attention. Perhaps not as a specific narrative construct as such, but something unique and meaningful. Picture this: each time your character dies, or possibly at times when death seems imminent, the game world could slow down, turn cloudy and dark. From the shadows Death would materialise in a sombre pose to present our character with karmic prose - perhaps giving some hidden advice or philosophical introspection about the meaning of lifeĀ something profound but relevant to our current situation within the game and programmed in such a way that we never hear the same speech twice. New conversations with Death could be worked into automatic game updates, something like that. It should feel like your time spent in his presence is meaningful and tailor-made for you, not just a respawn gimmick.