Shower thought: Being a Lich must feel like playing a videogame

[supergoji18]

The resurrective immortality of a lich is basically respawning like in Dark Souls

Liches have been playing the game so long (i.e. lived) that the masses of people (NPCs) all seem like nothing more than empty shells repeating the same lines of dialogue over and over with the same problems, demanding the same fetch quests, and useful for the lich as nothing more than a means to an end. The only time they take real interest is when they see other players (i.e. the PCs).

[Cikomyr]

The resurrective immortality of a lich is basically respawning like in Dark Souls

Liches have been playing the game so long (i.e. lived) that the masses of people (NPCs) all seem like nothing more than empty shells repeating the same lines of dialogue over and over with the same problems, demanding the same fetch quests, and useful for the lich as nothing more than a means to an end. The only time they take real interest is when they see other players (i.e. the PCs).

That's an interesting video game idea.

You can respawn as many times as you want. But your character is literally erased if he loses his Phylactery

[Tvtyrant]

I don't think it is quite the same, they still take setbacks permanently instead of retrying the same events. I rather like the idea of Lich's basically being PCs, maybe even becoming meta-aware over time.

Deaddeadpool would be cool.

[Lemmy]

I don't think it is quite the same, they still take setbacks permanently instead of retrying the same events. I rather like the idea of Lich's basically being PCs, maybe even becoming meta-aware over time.

Deaddeadpool would be cool.

Undeadpool sounds better.

[Xuc Xac]

Liches have been playing the game so long (i.e. lived) that the masses of people (NPCs) all seem like nothing more than empty shells repeating the same lines of dialogue over and over with the same problems, demanding the same fetch quests, and useful for the lich as nothing more than a means to an end.

Liches saw other people that way when they were still alive too. You've got to be an evil sociopath to become a lich in the first place.

[Komatik]

How right you are.

[Imbalance]

What do you think I've been training for my entire life? Chasing ghosts, slamming 'shrooms, outrunning Clarence "Razor" Callahan, and studying the gospel according to mega-lich Sid Meier - does this sound like fun to you? This is all in preparation for my ascent to digital godhood! Bow before my eternal might!

*ahem* k, maybe a little fun...

[Scripten]

The game Undertale kind of approaches this point, though it's more of a deconstruction of video game tropes as opposed to fantasy ones. Still an interesting source for villain motivation, if that's the kind of tone you want to go for.

[Spore]

The game Undertale kind of approaches this point, though it's more of a deconstruction of video game tropes as opposed to fantasy ones. Still an interesting source for villain motivation, if that's the kind of tone you want to go for.

Spoiler: Undertale spoilers, seriously play the game first!

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Seeing Flowey as a kind of "flower lich" makes perfect sense to me, even if you removed the constant fourth wall breaks.

Most liches are still well within their diabolical plans and have not grown weary by being stopped by adventurers and heroes so often. It would be pretty new to encounter a lich that does just enact an evil plan so someone acknowledges their existence, so that someone stops them, entertains them.

[Aotrs Commander]

Liches saw other people that way when they were still alive too. You've got to be an evil sociopath to become a lich in the first place.

Hey!

I resemble that remark!

That's an interesting video game idea.

You can respawn as many times as you want. But your character is literally erased if he loses his Phylactery

...

Planescape: Torment...?



Sure, there was no phylactery, but the number of places in the game where you could actually die were both extremely limited and actually required some effort.

(That one trap room that had no exit and if you went into, you basically had to reload an earlier save notwithstanding.)

[King of Nowhere]

liches still lose all their equipment after destruction, and they have to recover it from scratch. if lichdom is like a videogame, it's one of those long term browser games where rebuilding after a major defeat still takes lot of time and effort and it's likely you'll never get as high ranked as you would have otherwise.

And, as others pointed out, "other people are merely means to an end" doesn't necessarily link to videogames. Many evil people think so in real life, and many good people will try to make videogame npcs happy.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Not to mention that being a Lich means losing most of your senses. You've got sight and hearing, but taste, touch, and smell are all gone because you're undead. There's no more appeal in the physical world; your only joy comes from seeing the results of your actions.

Just like when you're playing a video game.

[Aotrs Commander]

Not to mention that being a Lich means losing most of your senses. You've got sight and hearing, but taste, touch, and smell are all gone because you're undead. There's no more appeal in the physical world; your only joy comes from seeing the results of your actions.

Just like when you're playing a video game.

REALLY depends on what type of Lich.

Spirit-Bound Liches, for example, can do everything a living being can do (especially eat chocolate) - typically BETTER¹ - except excrete and procreate. (If you were some sort of strange Lich that DIDN'T want to be a skeleton, you could probably even recreationally procreate if you wanted, you pervert.)




¹But as the power comes from you essentially haunting (like haunted house) your own corpse, there are always some individual perculiarities. I never had much of a sense of smell in life, so I don't have one in death. I also can't whistle, despite the sound now being essentially being created magically and there is theorhetically no mechanic reason why I shouldn't be able to produce those sounds; but I couldn't so my subconscious informs me I still can't.

[Braininthejar2]

The Overlord anime explores the idea, but from a slightly different perspective - we rarely notice how much of a sociopath our usual game character can be. By making the protagonist a lich, naturally devoid of most human emotion, it shows what happens when one starts treating living humans as he would NPCs.

[ExplodingRat]

So basically like TFS Frieza then?
(I'd post a link to a clip, but I apparently can't do that yet since this is a new account.)