So, under normal circumstances, death takes you

So, under normal circumstances, death takes you.

However, you can challenge him to a game to keep your life.

My question is this: What does death get from these games? After all, he could just say no and take your life anyway.

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Some fucking amusement for once.

If you lose the game death takes a loved one as well

This, why wouldn't he get the same thing from a game as anyone else?

It's fun. And if he lose, he get to be fucking surprised for once, and maybe he can improve his game next time you come see him!
You're gonna die in the end anyway

Death is a neckbeard who can't find anyone to play games with him. The only way for him to play at all is to threaten you with literal death if you refuse.

In Masquerade by Terry Pratchett the witch Granny Weatherwax challenges Death to a game of cards. Death had come to take a life. It could either be the sick cow or the dying child.

Death agreed to the game out of good manners. Granny had stacked the deck in her favour so he made her take cards first knowing this. Death agreed that he had lost the game because he only had a hand full of ones and took the cow rather than the child.

>My question is this: What does death get from these games?
Let me answer this with another question: if you have LITERALLY all the time in the world, what reason do you have to concern yourself with things like efficiency or finding the most logical solution? Efficiency is only meaningful to those with limited means.

Taking life is Death's vocation, but that doesn't mean it's his sole interest

He gets your life along with an additional bit of hope you didn't know you still had.

this. It's not like death REALLY loses anything, in most of these stories beating death doesn't make you immortal it just gives you 20 years, which is like the blink of an eye for an immortal concept.

If your immortal and can never "lose at life, maybe a game is the only place he isn't immortal?

The real Question is how did he get so good at all the games?

Do you know how many people die every year?

Buy do you think may actually take up his challenge?

Current estimates place the total number of humans ever at around 110 billion people. If even 1% of the people that died challenged him to a game he has still played over a billion games.

Sunken costs

>My question is this: What does death get from these games?
He's legally obliged to give you the possibility.
>After all, he could just say no and take your life anyway.
He totally does.

We're all already playing a game, and Death's the GM.

>do you think many people want to not die

It's all just one guy's game. Everything. The whole universe and everyone in it. We're all just background NPCs that a bored omnipotent psychopomp spun up to populate his setting for this ONE GUY'S attempt at prolonging his life.

Somewhere, the most important person to ever exist is frantically trying to larp his way out of a premature end, and we're just the GM's needlessly elaborate backstory.

You live for as long as you GM?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=sozIrC6iO00

Didn't Death make her switch hands after they'd been dealt but before they looked at them? I can't remember the details.

What can the harvest hope for if not the care of the Reaper Man?

>What does death get from these games?

Amusement

>After all, he could just say no and take your life anyway.

No it cant, unless you are shit at making deals

>What does death get from these games?

Death gets to fucking play a game.
Death LOVES games, Death plays ALL sorts of games: chess, mario kart, settlers of cattan, shitty mobile games, anything they can get their hands on.

>After all, he could just say no and take your life anyway.

Death is inevitable, Death isn't some vague threat, Death is a promise that will always be kept.
If you beat Death at Wii Tennis, well, so what? You'll go back for a couple more years which is NO TIME AT ALL and Death will be there waiting with the same deal: beat them in a game or we're going right to the after life.

I like Terry Pratchett's Death the most. He is merely an arbiter of order, not some nebulous antagonist. Death shouldn't really -take- anyone, it is there to guide the departed to whatever setting-dependent fates they might have. Naturally it would be against cheating of this natural order, but it wouldn't be cold and callous.

If you lose you become his boytoy.

>mario kart
Do you think he plays Dry Bones to be cheeky, or would he pick some underdog like Luigi to make you think he doesn’t know what he’s doing?

Who is the teacher bird thing?

>Do you think he plays Dry Bones to be cheeky, or would he pick some underdog like Luigi to make you think he doesn’t know what he’s doing?

Black, White or Pink Shyguy main.

If you win you become the new reaper, and he finally gets to rest in peace.

Why would you ever want to give up this sweet gig? You get your bunk, your horse, your immortality. Sweet medical benefits too, not that you're ever going to get a nasty cough as a skeleton.

That is indeed what happens. DEATH never loses, except when he thinks he can be cheeky and give the heroes a break.

because if your going to personify death as a sapient being its bound to get lonely and bored

He absolutely fucking despises his job. He does it because he has to, not because he likes it. Every time someone choses to fight for his life instead of willingly submitting to death, it makes him proud and happy for a short while.

The joke is a hand full of Ones is really a hand full of Aces.

He gets to watch you squirm as he beats your ass at your own game.

Little known fact: Death is in fact actually the god of games, who took over the job of the god of death when the god of death is in fact dead, and has been, since he was created.

He is the best at all games.

To paraphrase what an earlier user said, he wants some amusement; if someone is worth their salt and defeats him, they are worthy of keeping their soul, and their life.

>had a hand full of ones
user, I...

>GET IN THE BAG

That's the joke

I think he just wants someone to teach him how the knight/horse moves in chess. Poor guy.

First post best post.

Death is bored out of his fucking mind, imagine dragging freaked-out souls to the underworld all damn day? A nice game, some new rules to learn, he'd appreciate the break.

I don't much care for XKCD after he got political-er, but he has an old comic about a guy GMing a TTRPG for death. I've always liked the idea of death getting a nice long break to play a character instead of being a powerful spirit.

That was after gygax died. The here is the comic.

maybe death is bored?

Entertainment. He's probably bored out of his fucking mind.

Death never ever moves his knights when playing chess.
They just sit there. Staring blankly at the opposing side. About halfway through the game, Death's opponents never fail to notice this.
There are rumours. Rumours that Death has created a secret strategy involving the two knights moving just at the right moment.
As the game carry on, Death's opponent can't help but wonder when those knights are going to move. The two little wooden horse heads get more menacing with each turn. Eventually, nervousness and anxiety cause the opponent to make a bad decision that costs them the game.
Death never noticed this. He never understood how to move the two little horsies and never dared to ask.

He gets to show off his sick tomb kings army with the one hq that vaguely resembles him

And that one guy would if course have a pretty big role. Maybe one that is, say, eternal in some way.

Fucking Jesus did all this, man.

He takes your soul if you lose
If you die you go to the underworld
But if you lose his game you go to hell for eternity

>challenge death to a tabletop campaign
>he accepts
>reveal the FATAL rulebook

How does challenging someone to an RPG work anyway?

If they quit out of frustration or they die, you win.
If they beat the campaign, you lose

Traditionally, you walk up to them, and stare them straight in the eye. Then you extend your left hand towards his bag of prerolled dice. If he stops your hand before it makes contact, he has accepted the challenge and has the right to pick the system. If he is a coward and wants to avoid the fight, he allows you to shake his dice up. From then on he will be shunned by other players and soon be shamed into shaving off his neckbeard.

>What does death get from these games? After all, he could just say no and take your life anyway.
He could either take your life straight away, or take it after a few minutes of playing a game but he takes it anway.
Death never looses.

>He is the best at all games.
Okay, Death, we're doing this.

No items, Fox only, FINAL DESTINATION.

Some entertainment. Helps break up the monotony of eternity.

He's so good you might even say he's the king

It takes an exceptional person to challenge Death.
And Death _needs_ exceptional people. Because, you see, Death is building an army. All the time. There is an unseen war waged by agents in the sevice of higher powers. You just became one of those servants.
Sure, you get to keep your life. But now you have a Job to DO.
You'll work with other agents of Death to insure that things in the mortal real remain mortal. You'll hunt down those fuckers who think they are beyond Death's embrace : vampires, liches, and other undead will be your prey. Or maybe you'll just be Death Mom Staff cooking dinner for the other hard working troops in Death's army.
No matter what, your normal mortal life is over. Welcome to the Other Side.

Everything’s going to die at some point anyway. The literary point of these games is that even if you win, you still lose. Death comes for all eventually.

>Death literally forgets about you
>nobody will ever play your homebrew with you

he gets (you)'s

>death wavedashing all over the place
jesus christ