Member Discussions

We're having a long discussion of permadeath on the mud design board. I'm wondering from the view point of you of the mud community as RPers (NOT GAMERS...hehe).

Would you play on a mud where it is possible for your character to permanantly cease to exist?

What would you like to see in such a mud?

Yes, you can be ressurected (limited), reincarnated, and the like, but it's not infinite.

I'd like to hear from the lot of you.

I've killed off characters before (I primarily play consent-based, pure-RP muds these days). It's a powerful roleplaying tool, but has major issues as well... A lot of roleplayers tend to get attached to characters (including me), and none like to lose roleplaying options (which is what the permanent death of a character is).

So, you ask, would I play a mud where a character could suffer permanent death? If its coded in, say, you run out of resurrections, then I would not play. I belive such a system is shallow and too hack'n'slashy to me, but I figure many people may like that. By the same token, I've permakilled my own characters on non-permadeath muds by roleplaying a brutal, horrifying death, and then just never ever logging on again. I'm a diehard roleplayer, and believe everything should directly benefit roleplay... So, I'd like to see a mud where permadeath is encouraged, perhaps some reimbursement in the form of alt improvement, but not wherein a certain number of deaths will wipe you out. I might not be ready to let go of my character yet (still stories to tell), and, anyways, such systems seem shallow realism-wise. I figure the player knows best when a character can/should die for the benefit of RP (assuming they are a good player). But, I'm really odd in my opinion on such matters. ;-)

I would like to see one life to a character. I would however also like to see some kind of "ghost" state after that life ended. Be it to waunder the worlds unseen and unable to touch anything or do more then whisper in the wind, or be it to sit in "heaven" with other veterans to tell stories of days gone by... death should not be the end of the character.

If you have admin playing the muds "gods" resurection might be gained on rare occasions. I don't think it is a good idea for a player not to fear their characters death. Some mystery should be involved. Nowing exactly what will happen is not always as fun.

As always, this is but my thought on the subject, and it should be taken with a grain of salt.

~Chainmaile

I'm a huge fan of permadeath on Muds/Mucks/Moo's and whatnot. As such, I only play on permadeath games.

I disagree with the notion that a player knows when it's best for their character to die. Some players might, but in general, most people want to selfishly hold on to characters that they've "worked on" for so long, now matter how good the RP would be.

As for ideas about permadeath, I like systems in where one life is it, but that life is hard to take. This can be done via elaborate combat and health systems, along with a strict law enforcement system. If a game doesn't have 1 life permadeath, it needs to have a solid reason for the extra lives. Whether it's magic or technology. Having extra lives just for the sake of extra lives is silly and will completely twist the way the players look at death from an OOC and IC point of view.

These ideas are for a game with plots and RP. If said game was a level based adventure game, with mobs and experience aimed for the solo player, then I'd say go for an unlimited lives system, with just penalties for dying.

That brings to mind a situation I observed in one game I played for a short while that had unlimited lives.

Basically, due to some rp circumstances, a girl had extreme hatred for this guy who had wronged her baddly and who was completely unrepentent. He also insistently tried to follow her around as if nothing had ever happened. Anyway, she had a harsh temper and was very good with a knife. I happened to be in the room one time and saw her attack and kill him almost instantly, and then leave (yes it was rp, and not just a random slay. He was to dumb to split). A few minutes later the guy reappears with a new body to take the items from his corpse. He looked at me and said using 'osay' "Damn it! Now I got to think up an ic reason for still being alive, and this is the third time!"

Unlimited deaths without a logical ic reason for them can really ruin the rp. Perma death however can greatly increase it in many instances. If you do want unlimited deaths, fine. Its your choice. Just take the time and give the players some ic reasoning behind it.

~Chainmaile

I still believe that such a system is just too hack'n'slashy. Death is a big deal, especially for complex characters you have invested time and effort into, and their deaths should be something carefully considered. I do not want my character to die to some bum named Joe who happens to have a bigger gun and a way around the law... I want their death to have meaning within the scope of RP, to advance their character even as it ends their life, to bring some sort of conclusion to their story, or offer that story rebirth in the consequences of their death. Simply having coded one-death systems is FAR too shallow in my opinion.

Now, on MUSHes and MUCKs, and so forth, there generally seems to be a consent system... Which, in such a situation, makes death a dandy system. I see no reason that, because a few bad players do not wish to surrender their characters, that the rest should be forced into badly timed deaths (as you seem to be suggesting should be allowed). Roleplaying is an art form, and the artist's touch should be given some freedom. With restrictions and protections, permadeath can be a powerful roleplay tool. Without, it is nothing more than a hack'n'slash trick.

(Comment added by Spazmatic1 on Fri Sep 20 15:19:36 2002)

This is a reply to Mxyzptlk. I think I screwed up the technical reply aspects, so it doesn't look like one.
Whoops. ;-)

I disagree.

Non-permadeath is too hack and slashish. Role playing is most certainly an artform, but there's not just one artist. Sometimes other pieces of "Roleplaying art" require that your character, in the collective roleplaying game, die. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with your vision for that specific character, because in a good collective roleplaying game, the game is bigger than one character. The advancement of the game is more important then the advancement of a single character. Especially when the player can simply make a new character when their character dies.

In permadeath, death becomes a big deal. In most other systems, it's just a simple aspect of the game with no real repercussions, generally. I've seen games where players come back within 15 seconds, retreive items from their own corpse, or even re-engage in combat with the same combatant. In permadeath, death means something. A permadeath game is only shallow is poorly done, but that's true for any poorly designed system.

Non-permadeath gives the game a video game hack n slash feel. Permadeath brings depth to the roleplaying environment.

Mxyzptlk

That reminds me of something that happened to me once. My character was dying, and a powerful wizard was trying to save her life. The working of the magic ravaged his body and he nobly sacrificed his life to save my character. A few minutes later, he walked in, got his eq from his corpse, and said, "That hurt."

Now, while there was never permadeath even in RP in this setting (it was against the theme, which involved semi-immortal wizards that reincarnated upon death), people were generally reborn as a child with some memory of their past lives. Coming in like that as if it were just an everyday occurance was like a slap in the face of the RP.

Well you've already heard my opinion but just to recap...

1) chargen process that requires admin approval
2) exile, ban and delete any hack-n-slash game player that somehow survives chargen
then...
3) permadeath is good
4) resurrection/reincarnation should be non-existent or extremely unusual and rare (meaning there better be a good IC reason why it should occur)

:-)

I still assert that in-built coded permadeath without restrictions protecting players is moronic. I've been on such muds, and death is far too common, especially for those of us who play commoner-types, such as merchants. It strikes me as VERY hard to imagine that simple merchants would have life expectancies of 21 years...

Like I said, I'd rather have no-permadeath than badly considered permadeath. You do not simply "make a new character." I spend days, sometimes weeks, constructing backgrounds for characters, for designing who they are, their ambitions, hopes, descriptions, habits, etc... To have them get popped in a situation that doesn't make sense RP-wise, or is just plain moronic, that is a horrendous slap in the face.

Like I said, it's not that I don't like permadeath. I permadeath my characters even on non-permadeath muds all the time. But I dislike 90% of permadeath systems because they are way too hack'n'slashy... I want to be able to appeal the fact that all the mercenary warriors are morons, running around slaying civilians just because they are big and buff (yes, I've been on muds like this)... Or mages who have no IC reason to suddenly fireball my poor little scout, but do so just cuz.

So my statment is simple:
If you want to code in non-consent-based permadeath, fine. But place enough restrictions in that it doesn't become a diehard RPers nightmare.

Spaazmataic1,

After further checking into the D&D rules i'm basing it off of, it's almsot virtually RARE to die of regular death, you can be res'd alot. you lose 1 level, and if you're 1st level lose 1 con. So if you level enough, you can lose it and get it back and lose it and get it back. So aslong as you keep yourself balanced, then you can live for a while, BUT there will always be "old age" you won't die right away just be "forced retired".

There isn't alt improvement for permadeath, but for "retiring characters" there will be. Rare races to choose from, eventually rarer classes/specialty classes, etc.

your opinion is great and I enjoy'd reading it.

Chainmaile,

I would like to see one life to a character. I would however also like to see some kind of "ghost" state after that life ended. Be it to waunder the worlds unseen and unable to touch anything or do more then whisper in the wind, or be it to sit in "heaven" with other veterans to tell stories of days gone by... death should not be the end of the character.

Hehe, we have both of those. After scrutiny my old idea on it will modify a little. The take now. You die, become a ghost, your ghost has a time it can use to get res'd, rein, raise dead by another player, pray to his god or have a contigency saving. If none of these happen in the time, the soul/ghost will go to "land of the dead/limbo" type place. The body remains on the prime material plane, and can be resurrected.

If you have admin playing the muds "gods" resurection might be gained on rare occasions. I don't think it is a good idea for a player not to fear their characters death. Some mystery should be involved. Nowing exactly what will happen is not always as fun.

We do have that, BUT gods will rarely do it. Priests/clerics can resurrect or raise dead, druids can reincarnate.

As always, this is but my thought on the subject, and it should be taken with a grain of salt.

I hate salt :)

Chainmaile,

That brings to mind a situation I observed in one game I played for a short while that had unlimited lives

I agree with your story, that kind of harrassment will have that player banned from the game, the female player shouldn't hve to put up with that.

The other thing, keeping with real D&D, corpses will be open. So when he came back, you would already be gone with all his stuff, or she would have.


I don't like unlimited lives, just like that guy, gives them nothing to lose. He just keeps on, because nothing happens. Happens in alot of RP, with my system it's virutally limitless if you're a good player, but the long run it can cost you plenty.

kirlin,

That reminds me of something that happened to me once. My character was dying, and a powerful wizard was trying to save her life. The working of the magic ravaged his body and he nobly sacrificed his life to save my character. A few minutes later, he walked in, got his eq from his corpse, and said, "That hurt."

I totally agree with you kirlin. Now this would have been COOL for him to permanently die after sacrafising his life to you. As a god, i would hvae res'd him for it. But the life returning not being part of the RP too, I don't like. It wasn't truely a sacrafice. And again, the corpse and equipment serve no meaning either asn he got it back because no one else could take it (probably, since most muds are like that).

Now if he was there dead with you, i as a god would have put his soul back into his body, you would have saw a bright light come from the heavens and do it. How would you like? You see RP that he has returned to life, and not just stroll in.

Yeah, the main issue is still there, though... A roleplayer isn't always interested in levelling... Fact is, if I play a nice shopkeeper, I really shouldn't be capped at the age of 20... Especially not if I keep remaking. The average life expectancy of a shopkeeper is not 20 years. And this is where my issues with permadeath appear, because a coded system allows too many such abuses (this being an extreme case, of course).

> I totally agree with you kirlin. Now this would have been COOL for him to permanently die after sacrafising his life to you. As a god, i would hvae res'd him for it. But the life returning not being part of the RP too, I don't like. It wasn't truely a sacrafice. And again, the corpse and equipment serve no meaning either asn he got it back because no one else could take it (probably, since most muds are like that).

Good roleplayers will permadeath themselves anyways. In that situation, if I had felt the need to ressurrect the poor guy, I would've at least played dumb afterwards. He is obviously a pitiful roleplayer. To push the point, I have a little story from a friend about a non-permadeath mud. This one guy was a warrior of death and once, while protecting the temple, he let an enemy by. In response, he permadeathed himself via seppuku and deleted. That's good RP. Forced permadeath often hurts the power of such RP. Example in point being a scout of mine who was running errands (delivering messages) when he stumbled onto a wizard sitting in the forest, resting. The wizard, for no reason at all, cast an entrapment spell and then fireballed my scout to death. My scout could've died bringing back valuable information, maybe his horse could've kept going to give that vital piece of intel... Or maybe he could've died carrying medical supplies to some far camp, or be the victim of a vicious orc raid... But no, he was the victim of a random hack'n'slasher wizard (his wizard was supposed to be wise and gentle too!) who was having a bad day and felt like roasting a poor little elf. THIS is why I disagree with permadeath systems that do not have HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY restrictions (such as consent, or RP-review).

Well, personally I feel that a person should never get so attached to their character that they are unwilling to die by "is just plain moronic" or maybe "a horrendous slap in the face".

You see you may have no idea why that wizard char-broiled your scout, and as such it seems like a random slaying. However, maybe he was being hunted by someone who looked like you, or just the year prior had suffered some grievous wrong from an elf. Things can happen suddenly in real life, it just happens. Yeah you may be rushing a miricle herb to save the kings life, but that does not stop an arrow that was ment for a deer from killing you.

This does not mean that appearent "random deaths" shouldn't be looked into by the immortals to punish wrongful killers. It doesn't mean you should have your character restored however. I too spend a lot of time working up the background of my characters, but I don't expect them to live out the story I dreamed up for them. I drop them into the word and let things happen. If things go foul and they die, atleast it was realistic. I then just build another character and start over.

Just remember that in the "ideal" world, the world's story is what should come first. Even at the expense of a well built characters life. He can always sit around with the rest of the hero ghosts in Valhala and tell stories, or maybe waunder around as a whisper in the wind. (my ideas of the ideal "perma-death")

disclaimer: These are only the views of the writer, and are neither held to be fact, nor nessecarily wise council ;)

~Chianmaile

P.S. I am concidering starting a thread of "unlimited death" stories in the Mud Humor forum. I am sure we all have seen a lot of interesting things in that area.

Amen.

~Chainmaile

Spazmatic1,

Yeah, the main issue is still there, though... A roleplayer isn't always interested in levelling... Fact is, if I play a nice shopkeeper, I really shouldn't be capped at the age of 20... Especially not if I keep remaking. The average life expectancy of a shopkeeper is not 20 years. And this is where my issues with permadeath appear, because a coded system allows too many such abuses (this being an extreme case, of course).

There will be RP levels for the commoner class, which is what a shop keeper will be. And capped at the age of 20? You will still age, you're right a shop keeper may not retire for longer, i guess i'll have to clearify people will retire from adventuring at the documented ages. You're mixing up death and retirement. Or i'm unclear of what you're stating here.

Spazmatic1,

Forced permadeath often hurts the power of such RP. Example...scout...THIS is why I disagree with permadeath systems that do not have HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY restrictions (such as consent, or RP-review).

But is it not realistic in RP that that happens? In D&D campaigns when you travel, don't you have random encounters where you could die? IN our game, the scout still has a soul, maybe if he's religious or doing work for a church he gets a free res, or the people that he scouts for will have him res'd to get his information. What if that same scout came across a mob that kills him?

Chainmaile,

This does not mean that appearent "random deaths" shouldn't be looked into by the immortals to punish wrongful killers.

All murder deaths (pks), will be logged, it will be requested that reason be given but not always neccessary, those NOT given will result in alignment changes, those given that are accurate and coinside with RP will be handled differntly.

Like i stated in the coder design board. There is always consequences, but it will be for PC AND NPC deaths. With alignment changes and flag settings (murder as muds have it) will be less noticeable (not on who list type stuff). But will get wanted posters for them, bounties on thier head, city guards watching for them, good people after them. Believe me all murders will have consequences. But immortal involvement will be a rare one. I'm gonna see how the world shapes itself.

I still like your views :)

I do know the death was random because I knew the player OOC. He was having a bad day and just felt like roasting things (he had roasted half the forest already).

The fact is, it is my opinion, and those of the people I mud with, that a world's story is of its characters stories. And I believe that these stories are hurt so very much by unrealistic deaths... Kind wizards don't suddenly roast messengers... Protectors of the good don't run around beating on poor faeries (this too, has happened, resulting in death for several) because they OOCly commented that a few of the protectors should spell... The king's guard should not ravage every player merchant's home every week, but leave the mob homes untouched... Coded permadeath leads to this. Especially for weaker characters who should not generally suffer frequent deaths. Why is it that, when I create a non-combatant, say, a priest (who thereby stays at level 1 or at least possesses no combat skills, in the case of skill-based muds), I find myself dying after like 10 hours of play? Last I checked, priests had LONGER life expectancies than warriors...

Coded permadeath without RP-driven restriction is moronic as can be. I don't write a story for my characters before I RP them, the story is written by the roleplay... But I have some idea when the story has been well-told and is nearing completion, versus an utter flop due to a grumpy player OOC or someone who doesn't understand RP. And that's why I no longer play any coded permadeath muds without massive RP restrictions (and I mean massive, not the half-hearted ones many muds put up).

Capped as in killed. Capped is another term for killed. Comes from decapped in GW muds, I believe. *looks around* Okay, so I play GW's sometimes... PK is entertaining too!

Anyways, back to the point at hand... Contrary to your high fantasy novel, or medieval times, anyone pursuing an unarmed life in mud worlds tends to have short life expectancy unless they are very clever (and my characters tend not to be). It's kinda silly having a little street urchin beggar get capped by a big warrior because he was looking for an extra kill to add to his bragging to friends today. Sure, shopkeepers get ravaged and held up and so forth all the time in medieval times, and I expect in any fantasy literature that deals with them... But, uhm, life expectancies of 20 years (based on the 18 years start point most muds seem to have, and 17 years as well) is kinda silly, don't you think? The big risk with coded permadeath systems.

He was an old, kind, FRIENDLY wizard played by a player who had a bad day OOC. That was the only reason my little scout and half the forest died a brutal, burning death. This is not running into an orc raiding party or a highway bandit... This is unrealistic, and stupid. The big risk with permadeath.

I've been on muds like that, and the world seems to have a tendency to shape as follows:

1) Big Warriors
2) Big Mages
3) No one else.

The reason being, well, if I play a priest who is, uhh, really priestly... And then, for whatever reason, a warrior decides to kill me, he can just run in and slash... Without mandatory RP-support for all playerkills, I'm now dead and gone (assuming, for whatever reason, the rest of the priests don't ressurrect me, possibly because they all left because they're sick of incessant death, or have been slaughtered by the same warrior?), and very easily for no reason at all. I've had priests capped by knights templar who needed some piece of equipment they were carrying, or whose alt I had excommunicated from someone's body... It's very open to abuse. Simply punishing seriously wrong deaths isn't really enough either... Every death should require full, detailed RP explanations in-line with previous RP of a player's characters, or explained through emotional distress caused by RPed events occurring of recent... And no, saying that your character was mad cuz his sword was a little worn out doesn't really work for me either.