Member Discussions

I have enjoyed reading the rather long thread on Permadeath and it seems that there is still a lot of hedging around the basic issue involving god involvement, resurrections, character-based justice, and so on...

I have seen some valid suggestions on what sort of restrictions would need to be placed on killings in order for permadeath to be acceptable to some...

But let me re-ask the question in a very straightforward manner and solicit your responses:

Would you play on a MUD where death, when it occurred the first time, was irrevocable (no resurrections, no interventions by admin or gods, no clones) where there were no restrictions on who could kill another (no need for a reason, no consideration of abilities, death within a few minutes of logging in)?

Maybe call this 'unrestricted permadeath'. Would you play on such a MUD?

No.

Not even if they gave me a level 100 character of my choice who couldn't be killed by any others. The roleplay would degrade so quickly, the world fall to absurdity so fast...

Would you play on such a MUD?

Yes i would.

But, just so it's known for further debate. You will NOT permadeath at level 1 for a NEW character by any means. I'm not sure if that part was said here, or just on the coder design thread.

(Comment added by muerte on Mon Sep 23 19:42:20 2002)

Until i saw that it was a H&S twink mud. But being as this isn't what i described, I'd still try it.

Maybe call this 'unrestricted permadeath'. Would you play on such a MUD?

Wholeheartedly, and I have before and would love to again. 'Unrestricted permadeath', is no deterrent to me, provided the game is a true RP MUD like the RPIs (note: don't misconstrue this as me saying the RPIs are the only true RP MUDs).

I had no combat skills whatsoever, and I feared not the spectre of death. Why? Because the game itself was geared for RPing and not hack-n-slash. Everyone was in character all the time. The player justice system worked. There were actually player guards who made their rounds. They were effective. Killing the wildlife (like deer and rabbits) was outlawed. Combat wasn't the means to an end (just a possible skill-set one could possess). Roleplaying was. I didn't go out killing wolves (I'd have been slaughtered easily had I tried, nor was I even inclined to), to advance as a healer. Nor did I spam 'cure joe' 50 billion times to twink up some cure skill. I roleplayed caring for the injured, reading instructive texts, and tending to the hospital and some of its more lowly affairs as an apprentice. I enjoyed it immensely, despite not having the gratification of 'You HAv3 b3c0m3 T3h UBER MEISTER of Aesilya's Rejuvinating Salve 2' provide me with encouragement to twink some more.

Thus, I would have to say that anyone who balks at the notion of unrestricted permadeath has never truly played one of the RPIs (beyond a superficial test or so). It works and is very fun. In the RPIs, people just don't go around slaying people in a hack-n-slash fashion. First of all, it takes too long to be approved, so the would be psycho would (ostensibly) have to possess good writing skills and would have to have read the introductory materials to create an appropriate character. This is the most effective barrier IMO (without having been an admin of any game). Plus, the in game dynamics would quickly weed out any OOC miscreants through the justice system and unlucretiveness of simply slaying common folk who wouldn't have anything of value to loot anyway. The people who would have phat lewt can either take care of themselves very well, or possess guards to defend themselves and such. All in all, if your world is makes sense, is well-planned to include a complex economy (which in turn requires a complex government, justice system, trade, culture, etc) and, of course, implements it beautifully, the miscreants will despise it as boring, tedious, and pointless and go play ball elsewhere.

>emote builds a small shrine to Alandra.

Chainmaile builds a small shrien to Alandra.

>grovel shrine

Chainmaile grovels in the dust before the shrine.

Need I say more?
~Chainmaile

First of all, it takes too long to be approved, so the would be psycho would (ostensibly) have to possess good writing skills and would have to have read the introductory materials to create an appropriate character. This is the most effective barrier IMO

Aye. An environment that has a lot of gameable elements is by definition an attraction to game players. Chargen approval is a very strong deterrent to game-players.
And one doesn't magically produce an RPI simply by coding it. There has to be a player culture and a staff who are devoted to RP.

I'm flattered. It's good to know that I'm not the only one who sees nothing inherently rp-destroying about unrestricted permadeath. In fact, I suppose we both think it actually fosters good RP in MUDs with a framework that actually supports RP.

I have a converse question for you. Would you consider RPing in a MUD with a less harsh system of death? How less harsh before death would become trivial to you?

This is both for Nurrin and Spazmatic.

Since neither of you will play under unrestricted permadeath, what's the minimum level of security you would to ensure that your death at the hands an an imaginary imp's thrall wasn't a spur of the moment justification? This seems to me to be something tricky to work out, even with RP logs or a required explanation. If the overall level of RP were nigh impeccable (i.e. everyone is always in character, good characterization and consistency, and you never encountered anything to the contrary), would you still have these requirements in place for security?

I'm personally going to have to give you a thumbs up for your views on administration. It seems that a lot of admins who would prefer a more RP-encouraged/enforced environment just aren't willing to be 'meanies' in order to deal with serious threats to the integrity of the RP atmosphere. Ban and delete are almost 4-letter words, lest they lose 7337n1nj4's valuable contributions to the maturation of the warrior caste.

I think what Spazmatic and Nurrin can't quite appreciate is that if 7337n1nj4 never makes it into the game in the first place (and is taken care of by the admins or some established system (hardcoded or not)), then he can't cause undue havoc in the first place.

How about, No.

I'd give it a go if it was coded well enough to allow people that didn't choose to be killers to survive.

I asked one of the coders of Elysium a while ago about his views on a cut-down permadeath version of Elysium to see how that would work out - always thought it'd be very interesting. No doubt Pewter would be one of the first players to be pkilled, but perhaps Pewter mkII or mkIII might survive after the twinks had been culled...

(Comment added by guinn_uk on Tue Sep 24 9:15:43 2002)

Meant to also add that in the right circumstances then you would have some of the best RPing in an unrestricted RP mud, since the killers would realise that if they killed for the sake of killing then they would most likely be killed themselves, so they would learn to keep themselves in line soon enough. Merchants could pay for protection, Royalty could do likewise. Simple townsfolk would know they weren't worth the bother of killing, since a killer wouldn't get anything from their corpse that would make the kill worthwhile.

Of course, it could also go horribly wrong, with a group of killers that got powerful enough to dictate which players survived more than a week or two and which were cut down for being promising... but still, if done right then it could be a really great game.

Anyway, enough of this, the edit's longer than the original post so I'll stop here.

Guinn

Original question: Would you play on a MUD where death, when it occurred the first time, was irrevocable (no resurrections, no interventions by admin or gods, no clones) where there were no restrictions on who could kill another (no need for a reason, no consideration of abilities, death within a few minutes of logging in)?

>>The player justice system worked. There were actually player guards who made their rounds. They were effective.
[snip]
>>First of all, it takes too long to be approved, so the would be psycho would (ostensibly) have to possess good writing skills and would have to have read the introductory materials to create an appropriate character.
[and]
>>Plus, the in game dynamics would quickly weed out any OOC miscreants through the justice system and unlucretiveness of simply slaying common folk who wouldn't have anything of value to loot anyway.
[and]
>>The people who would have phat lewt can either take care of themselves very well, or possess guards to defend themselves and such.
[and finally]
>>All in all, if your world is makes sense, is well-planned to include a complex economy (which in turn requires a complex government, justice system, trade, culture, etc) and, of course, implements it beautifully, the miscreants will despise it as boring, tedious, and pointless and go play ball elsewhere.

Alandra,

I would hope most every RPer here would agree with you. I will point out that what you described is not 'unrestricted permadeath' per the original question. Would you play in a permadeath MUD without viable PC justice, pre-screening of players, the ability to hire bodyguards, admin intervention, resurrection, etc?

You have provided an excellent start to a list of what sort of mechanisms within a MUD are necessary to make permadeath viable.

Thanks, Pewter

Aye. An environment that has a lot of gameable elements is by definition an attraction to game players. Chargen approval is a very strong deterrent to game-players.
And one doesn't magically produce an RPI simply by coding it. There has to be a player culture and a staff who are devoted to RP.

I agree, I went on a mud once that required that. It took 2 days to be authorized. I didn't bother going back, now this may spark a "he's a twink" towards me, but i go to muds on a whim that they MIGHT be good. You should be able to get on and check things out, even if it's in "holding" which i've also seen on some muds. You're dropped into like a "chat room" you can't game yet, but you can talk with the other people waiting and/or immortals and/or auth players.

And correct on point 2, RP has to be used by all to create the environment. HOpefully muds are geared that way and can handle it as such. I have a few of the future players on my mud, sit by for long periods of time while we work to keep us company. These people will be the future RP "gods". They will know the mud because they are there as it's being developed, and they show the dedication to it. As well as we joke around with some RP stuff while working.

Guinn,

This is what i'm saying/looking at.

Meant to also add that in the right circumstances then you would have some of the best RPing in an unrestricted RP mud, since the killers would realise that if they killed for the sake of killing then they would most likely be killed themselves, so they would learn to keep themselves in line soon enough. Merchants could pay for protection, Royalty could do likewise. Simple townsfolk would know they weren't worth the bother of killing, since a killer wouldn't get anything from their corpse that would make the kill worthwhile.

The argument from them here, is that a twink will go kill the commoner/townsfolk just cause they are H&S idiots that attack anything that move.

Of course, it could also go horribly wrong, with a group of killers that got powerful enough to dictate which players survived more than a week or two and which were cut down for being promising... but still, if done right then it could be a really great game.

Now think of the balance of the good gods, good groups doing the same thing. The higher power groups would be battling eachother rather than looking for the "promising" for other than recruiting and creating them (getting them and training them to be part of thier group).

I also have to add another point i don't think i've said before. In our "open" PK, there is level restrictions. I think we decided on a 5 level gap. And when attacking in groups, the group total is counted. So 3 5th level characters could battle 1 10th level-20th level fairly.

Nothing personal, but I think that the concept of any kind of general level (that actually effects things) is quite bad for rp. Levels that mean nothing in the game and are only visible to the player of the character does not hurt rp as much, and still can give a feeling of accomplishment.

Such a level should fluctuate up and down atleast some. It could be based off age, skills, current balance at the bank, length and frequency of social interactions, deeds done compared to allignment at character creation, and value of things owned. I am sure there is someway of making a player feel they are actually accomplishing something without making a straight ladder type of system.

True, a twink coming into the game could do more damage to an experienced character when they are "more equal" then he could in a level based game. In a level based game they are just swatted aside by the veterans, unless one power-levels of course. Still, if you are after rp realism and not a H&S feel, ditching levels can be a really good thing.

Twinks are like roaches, and the MUD community is infested with them. Just when you thought you killed them all another shows and brings all his friends. It gets to a point where the only thing left to do is squash them as you see them.

~Chainmaile

Then I must say that I've totally misunderstood what you meant by 'unrestricted permadeath'. I don't think your enumerative definition was enough to cover what you meant, because the RPIs tend to fit that bill.

If there were no viable PC justice system, ability to hire bodyguards, or some other self-controlling restriction within the world that's a result of a complex consideration of the setting, then I certainly can't see it being an RP game of any type, more like a PK for all fest. If someone recommended it to based on good RP, I would certainly give it a chance, but if there were no RP other than violence and combat going on, then no, I would pass unless it possessed an interesting and complex, non-run-of-the-mill combat system, or perhaps some other intersting code to tinker with. I would tend to view it as more of a game and less of a world unless my expectations (that RP is impossible under these conditions) were shown to be ill-considered (dubious at best).

>> 'I think what Spazmatic and Nurrin can't quite appreciate is that if 7337n1nj4 never makes it into the game in the first place (and is taken care of by the admins or some established system (hard coded or not)), then he can't cause undue havoc in the first place. '

The choice of the obviously poorly conceived name aside, the question as originally stated included no provisos for checking or stopping someone like 7337n1nj4 from being logged on for 24 hrs a day and killing anyone who logged on, just to be an ass. At least, that's the way the statement of 'unrestricted' reads to me. No restrictions in theme, peer pressure, or administrative to prevent the RP-haulting slaughter of people who come to role play. Sounds more like a PK mud to me.

So, in my way of thinking- if 7337n1nj4 signs on (and provided the name is appropriate for the theme of the game) then they should be allowed to play until such a time as they start disrupting the role playing of the muds population with the unrestricted slaying of everyone or anyone around.

-NT

> I would hope most every RPer here would agree with you. I
> will point out that what you described is
> not 'unrestricted permadeath' per the original question.

I disagree - what Alandra described is a perfect example of unrestricted permadeath (and it's a solution that works, as well). There is nothing stopping someone from logging on and killing anyone they wish. The death is irrevocable, and unrestricted by either code or OOC rules. The fact that other players can (and will) attempt to kill you in turn, after the fact, really has nothing to do with it. That's just part of the game, and it doesn't stop you from killing people (nor does it prevent you from getting away it).

>>The choice of the obviously poorly conceived name aside, the question as originally stated included no provisos for checking or stopping someone like 7337n1nj4 from being logged on for 24 hrs a day and killing anyone who logged on, just to be an ass.<<

Um, no. This is the original enumerative definition of 'unrestricted pk':

Would you play on a MUD where death, when it occurred the first time, was irrevocable (no resurrections, no interventions by admin or gods, no clones) where there were no restrictions on who could kill another (no need for a reason, no consideration of abilities, death within a few minutes of logging in)?

There is only one possible IC nullification (resurrection), and the rest are OOC. This is what led me to believe that the requirements meant something along the lines of OOC pre-in-game prevention (level and ability restrictions) or after-the-fact review and adjudication in response to a pk. This is where the explicit emphasis was. Thus, while I was mistaken in addressing what Pewter meant, I don't believe that my comprehension was the source of the error and also my point still has merit.

IMO, Seems like he's saying both the justice system (punishment for PKill) and long approval are restrictions on pkill. To be entirely unrestricted, those would therefore have to be removed to catch the spirit of the question. Wasn't an unrestricted pkill environment with reasonable rules and checks, if I understand correctly.

>>if your world is makes sense, is well-planned to include a complex economy (which in turn requires a complex government, justice system, trade, culture, etc) and, of course, implements it beautifully, the miscreants will despise it as boring, tedious, and pointless and go play ball elsewhere.

Agreed. In a mud like that, permadeath can work. However, that's a pretty slim category of MU*s as far as I've been able to tell, which is no doubt while this debate will rage for as long as people debate who killed JFK. :-) Just my $.02

Final thought: Die and make a new character. :) Without whining that you lost "super-uber-geek-player".

>>Final thought: Die and make a new character. :) Without whining that you lost 'super-uber-geek-player'.

POST FINAL THOUGHT: I think you may have missed the entire point of having the discussion. I come at it from the standpoint of the owner/head admin, one who will never lose a character to death on my MUD since I will be playing one of the Immortals.

The entire framing of the question of 'Would you play on an unrestricted permadeath MUD?', and the reason for discussing it, was to get the opinions of the players here so as to have an idea of what to implement that will be acceptable to the most players (or the least contemptuous to the fewest).

I particularly thank those that sort of skirted the question and provided a growing list of things that would need to be in place in order to make permadeath acceptable. I think that list, along with most of the opinions as I see them, lead to the answer that truly 'unrestricted pkill' belongs on pkill MUD's, not RP MUD's.

Thanks again to all that contributed...

>I think you may have missed the entire point of having the discussion.

I think you missed what others were saying too a bit Pewt.

I'd play on an unrestricted permadeath mud if the RP was in place to support it. If people were mature enough to play it properly then it'd be fine, if not I'd leave. I'd not play any game before finding out what the atmosphere was like, and an unrestricted permadeath would be no different. If it was like a mud version of Quake, where people just get killed because they're there then I'd probably not play for long.

>I particularly thank those that sort of skirted the question and provided a growing list of things that would need to be in place in order to make permadeath acceptable.

It's not that people are dodging your question, they were simply saying that they might play if it was done right - instead of just would they play on any unrestricted permadeath regardless of the atmosphere, which you seemed to be trying to get an answer to.


Guinn

I think the problem is that you've come here with the opinion that "unrestricted permadeath" is a bad thing, and then tried to push people into agreeing with you by
redefining its meaning. Imagine if I came here and said:

Would you play on a mud where players were forced to give their real life name, address, phone number, sexual preferences, email address, family tree, etc to the admin, in order to ensure that only serious roleplayers would stay? If the player refused to roleplaying properly, the admin would release their private details to the public - or in some cases, actually go around to their house and break their kneecaps. Maybe call this "roleplaying enforced". Would you play such a mud?"

Do you think it would be fair of me to expect people to say "Wow, that's awful, you're right...roleplaying enforced muds suck!"? Or do you think people would be more likely to say "Well you don't need to resort to threats in order to enforce roleplaying"? Would the latter be "skirting the question"?

If a mud physically stops you (through code) from killing someone for any reason, then that is "restricted permadeath" - the mud is restricting you. If the staff punish you for killing someone, then that could arguably be considered "restricted permadeath" - you are restricted by the rules, which are enforced by people who you can't avoid. If there are no coded restrictions and no immortal rules, however, then the mud is not PK-restricted. Such a mud can work very well (and there are several examples of this) but it depends entirely on the players.

The fact that unrestricted PK can often ruin a roleplaying atmosphere doesn't mean that it always will - nor does the fact that the admin of a roleplaying enforced mud might break your kneecaps for bad roleplaying mean that all such admin will. If you try to approach every possibility with an open mind, you'll find yourself in a better position to see the pros and cons of each system.