There is nothing definitive about life after death, except the involuntary enrollment at the mysterious Nevermore Academy. Now Lenore and An
Edgar Allen Poe, Dark academia, Sapphic, and Death Games if you like that You will enjoy
Ok, now for the real meat and potatoes
Death Games and plot hooks
Nevermore can be used as a case study on how to keep a death game narrative interesting
Once the stakes are established, STICK TO THEM. A lot of death games will often introduce the main hook then later on introduce new motivations for the contestants to "keep investment up" however this devalues the original motivation and muddies the themes of the narrative, KEEP IT SIMPLE, Nevermore uses a chance to be alive again to reinforce it's narrative about death and being stuck in one circumstances, however it does not need to be so grand a motivation like money can be perfect if that is what the story is based upon
Characters can do things outside the parameters of the Game: Chekov Gun as a rule sets something up to be used later, this can be played straight or subverted, in this case, characters have agency and are not going to follow every rule to the T and that can be interesting, have them find loopholes, get punished for breaking the rules and have to find a way to be okay, or find a way to gain an advantage in system designed against them
You have an Ensemble, so use them: Death Games by their nature are very similar to tournament arcs in their format, and inherent to this format are the Ensemble casts; characters who flesh out the narrative due to the different perspectives and conflicting interests. So often in Death game narratives, they will have characters who do nothing substantial to the plot, but when it's their time to die or stop being narratively important, they espouse an entire backstory; this is done to make their death "more tragic", but to make an audience care for character a better way to do that is make them have A CHARACTER with thoughts and opinions who actively make choices in the story they don't have to be perfect but a character who is a prop does not engage anyone
Anyway, Nevermore is very good and should be read
