If you were to narrow the ways a character can die down to six categories, what would they be?

Suffocation (drowning, etc.)
Bleeding out (violence, etc.)
Disease (plague, etc.)
Crushed (falling, etc.)
Natural Elements (hunger, thirst, exposure etc.)
Sudden death (heart attack, poison, etc.)

So give me your thoughts. Needs to stay in six categories.

Why six? You could do it in four categories:

1. Natural (Old age, starvation, drowning, auto-immune disorder, radiation.)
2. Violence (Animal and human attack, suicide.)
3. Accidental (Falling/something falls onto you, auto, gun discharge.)
4. Passive (Plant poison, fire.)

Disease could be listed as natural or violence or passive depending on how you view it.

It's always a good idea to approach these problems by first asking "why?" and then asking "how can I break this problem into smaller chunks?"

Quote from: Doughdee222;892484Why six? You could do it in four categories:

1. Natural (Old age, starvation, drowning, auto-immune disorder, radiation.)
2. Violence (Animal and human attack, suicide.)
3. Accidental (Falling/something falls onto you, auto, gun discharge.)
4. Passive (Plant poison, fire.)

Disease could be listed as natural or violence or passive depending on how you view it.

Trying to go with six--just personal preference. Though you gave me an idea for using the Four Horseman (Pestilence, War, Famine, Death).

OK. :idunno:

Emptiness. (bleeding, dehydration, suffocation)
Distortion. (slash, pierce, bludgeon)
Lassitude. (starvation, heartbreak, loneliness)
Excitement. (arrhythmia & heart palpitations, embolisms, shock)
Ennui. (disaffection, suicide, addiction)
Toxicity. (auto-immune disorders, poison, disease)

Quote from: Doughdee222;892484Why six? You could do it in four categories:

I expect it comes down to "so I can roll it on a d6."

Let Sean Bean help you out with this.

The many deaths of Sean Bean.

Being alive essentially consists of getting oxygen and other nutrients to a certain number of critically located cells in your body. Mostly the brain and the heart.

Say you lose a liver, or both kidneys. If bleeding's stopped in time (not fucking likely when massive trauma is involved, even nowadays), it'll take you a few hours or days before your body's chemistry gets so fucked up that your heart will stop.

But when your heart stops, every cell in your body is deprived of oxygen and nutrients, which sets off certain "oh shit" metabolic pathways that end up killing the cell. Bacteria, unable to count on the convenience of specialized tissues catering to their every cellular need, have evolved a distinct mechanism of survival -- they play dead. Some really primitive multicellular animals get to pull a similar trick. Our sophisticated but dumb cells just die, though.

What about the brain? Because the brain is such a delicate thing, it is possible to fry higher brain function, yet remain alive. We call this "brain death" which is kind of bullshit because technically most of brain cells are still alive, but data suggests that someone fulfilling brain death criteria is not realistically likely to restore consciousness, let alone anything resembling ordinary life.

Now, the sort of brain damage that'll kill you in the short term is that which interferes with the medulla oblongata (you know, where the brain more or less tapers into the spine), where the nerve cells controlling autonomic functions like heartbeat (yes, the heart can beat on its own, but it sucks real bad at it) and breathing (remember the bit about oxygen? Yeah).

It doesn't have to directly destroy the medulla oblongata, Because of the specific location of this nerve center, brain swelling by any cause can lead to a piece of swollen brain (typically the uncus) protruding through the foramen magnum (the big round hole in the base of the skull) and pushing down onto the medulla. Guess what? No breathing, no oxygen, poof, dead.

So, off the top of my head, people die:

Spoiler

- because the airway is blocked

- because the lungs are unable to draw oxygen from the air

- because oxygenated blood isn't making it to the heart and/or brain
-- because the coronary and/or carotid arteries are blocked
-- because blood volume has been depleted
-- because a widespread inflammatory response is interfering with blood vessel function

- because the brain is swollen

- because chemical imbalances and/or foreign chemical agents are interfering with
-- heart function
-- breathing
-- causing swelling of the brain (see above),

Yeah, that looks about right. Just about everything short of going back in time and murdering someone's grandpa as a kid can be worked into these.

Of course, people who die gruesome deaths (torn in half by a train or something) have several of these things going on at the same time.

Quote from: vgunnThough you gave me an idea for using the Four Horseman (Pestilence, War, Famine, Death).

I like that.

Quote from: The Butcher;892537So, off the top of my head, people die...

This is a good post, I mean *yoinks*.




So together it is both the "nature of death" and "how people die."

Long duration and painful
Long duration but not painful
Moderate duration and painful
Moderate duration but not painful
Short duration and painful
Short duration but not painful

Well there's always Faith's five basic torture groups (from Angel season 1, episode 18): blunt, sharp, hot, cold, and loud. Add suffocation, and you have six.

Drop loud, and add disease, and you still have six.