[RPG] How to a player smoothly transition from death to playing a hireling

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When a you roll last breath "On a miss, your fate is sealed. You’re marked as Death’s own and you’ll cross the threshold soon. The GM will tell you when."

Sometimes, the fictional positioning can allow you to keep the character alive until the end of the session, though they are marked for death and in a bad shape. It can be made known to the players that the character will officially die at the end of the session.

Sometimes, though, it may be more difficult because they somehow died early in the session or there is no satisfying way to handwave their death temporarily.

This is where my question comes in: some people let the play switch POV to a hireling but how do you do that in a satisfying way?

Hirelings don't have a character sheet. Do you draw up a sheet mid-session? If you use the stats from the hireling (Warrior, Burglar etc.) how do they map to the usual player stats for basic moves? Do they have a class?

Best Answer

Believe it or not, the rules state this directly:

No matter the prospects of resurrection for now you make a new character. Maybe a hireling becomes a full-fledged adventurer worthy of a whole share and a part in the real action... In any case, make your new character as you normally would at level 1. (Dungeon World, First Edition, p. 24)

Narratively, the hireling goes from being a redshirt in the background to one of the stars of the show. Just create the PC as you would, with the caveat that you've already played to find out at least some of their backstory, personality, etc.

Mechanically, the hireling status goes away, to be replaced by the PC's playbook.

The only thing I can think of that might make trouble is discrepancies between the hireling's gear as established in the fiction (if established), and the PC's equipment. And at that point, you can work with the player and party to work out how the PC has (or gets) these things.

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