Character Death (MvP & PvP/CvC)

[Steve]

How much sense does it make that our PCs die over and over and over again? What sense do you, as a Player, make of this phenomenon?

Do you have any suggestions for how the current situation could change? Should "deaths" be officially considered knockouts, unless X, Y or Z determines otherwise? Should permadeath strikes be enforced to a greater degree? Should DM events be always considers PermaStrike active, as a counter to the Pay-as-you-go-to-Myrkul option?

As it stands, it would seem our Characters have infinite lives. I personally think this does a disservice to the Role Play of this CPRG Server. So I'm wondering if some better conceived paradigm of how our PCs "live or die," might make the Game more interesting...and, create an experience that goes far beyond the Hack & Slash without consequence that seems to be the general paradigm (though I recognize this is actually enjoyable to many a Player).

Cheers.

[Bobthehero]

I count most deaths as knockouts. I personally don't like permastrikes, as my characters tend to go down a lot, being frontliners with little way of avoiding damage althogether, I'd have to remake new ones rather quickly, and that would prevent character developpement.

[BDobolina]

Perhaps if the mechanics were more sound, stable, and balanced (whatever that means to each of us) it would make more sense. For now I prefer the status quo, wherein I rather prefer that I (being the one present and aware of the time and circumstances of my character's "death") be the arbiter of whether or not said death is permanent.

Secondly, such an agreement requires a certain amount of trust between players/players and players/DMs. Do you think that level of trust is common at this point?

[Kiran]

I am currently on my 6th char as all the others have died due to pvp/rp/dm stuff.

Some people enjoy that, some enjoy making a char that lasts for years and years.

Do what ya feel. Is a game.

[wangxiuming]

I tend to treat death as merely a knockout when soloing/grinding where there are no real RP stakes. With other players, I go with the flow - if they went through the trouble of bringing me back via temple, raise scroll or spell, and are rp'ing it as such, then I go along with that. With DMs ... I do what the DMs tell me. =D

[wurdpass]

I am interested in this discussion but at the end of the day doubt there can be a change that works better for the community at large than what we have today, which is that it is up to the player.

I agree that infinite lives devalues the Role Play aspect of BGT but am also aware that what I (and perhaps you, OP) mean when I say "Role Play" is different than what other people want.

So to that point I am joining the discussion and stating some of my own opinions but I want to say I understand why the rules are how they are and that likely the rules won't change and it would be hard to change them for the "better" anyway.

The unfortunate impact of no rules around dying is that it disadvantages players who, to Kirans point, enjoy the stakes of playing their characters as eminently "mortal" where a bad PVP or DM encounter is the end of that chapter end.

It is particularly difficult for villain characters, where this "lack of stakes" double standard can make accomplishing anything while being openly evil feel extremely uphill as you may impose restrictions on yourself (no surviving PVP coup de grace, no surviving DM executions, whatever) but you can not on others.

So the villain might be rematching the same hero the fourth time after winning three, but if the hero wins round 4 they want to take the villain to jail, not "left for dead in the bushes" as the first three rounds concluded where the villain won.

Now in my opinion it's worth it. I'd be happier if it was more reciprocal - if villain can perma die or imprison, so can hero - but to me the role play is fun because of the stakes and without the stakes it's hard to get more invested than I would in a normal massively multiplayer instance grinding game. So it is what it is. But curious what comes of discussion.

[Ariella]

Oh it's that time of the year again?. Kiran sums it up really, if you want more realistic deaths you are free to kill your character at any point.

[Ghost]

As a DM, I usually treat mechanical deaths as knockouts (unless it's death to something like Finger of Death - hard to walk away from that one). I let players do heal rolls to stabilise and then I raise. You shouldn't have to use raise dead scrolls or spells in my events (EDIT: Unless someone dies, in which case I'll demand the raising be RPed appropriately!).

[Young Werther]

I just don't think the server works for too long if you perma-death all the time. Getting to 30 is a rewarding experience but it takes lots of effort. Having a level playing field with a lot of peoples' characters @ 30 has lots of benefits too. The server needs a major rework for perma-death to become the norm, imo.

[DaloLorn]

My two cents:

Although it's likely that access to raising/resurrection is easier than PnP, it also feels like getting killed is easier. As such, I feel that dying/raising are in an acceptable spot.

That being said, my approach is very much like wangxiuming's:

• If I die and nobody recovers me, pretend I just had a narrow escape or something. (This need not mean that I reset as completely as Myrkul would like - Shali once died at High Hedge before I chose to eat the XP penalty, so I played it as "I barely made it here, and I'm not out of the woods yet." As it happened, the RP that ensued was a turning point for her, both ICly and OOCly, since it set in motion a series of plots that still haven't been resolved.)
• If I die and someone does recover me, then I died. (I think all of my surface characters have gone through this at some point, though I think Shali's had the most of it… I'm pretty sure both of the others have only died once, and I have two deaths recorded for her.)
• If I die in such a way that my resurrection seems implausible (for instance, if the body is completely destroyed or otherwise impossible for any friendlies to retrieve, or if the soul has somehow been lost, etc.), then I intend to stay dead. Thankfully, although Shali seemed to be starting on that path once, she's in a much better state now - the most likely subject for something like this is now Silia, who has many enemies, very few friends, and even fewer resources with which a resurrection could be performed. (Really, it's no wonder that my drow is the first character which I've felt the need to come up with a suspiciously convenient (but not similar! ) substitute for, in case things went to the Hells…)

I am somewhat opposed to the idea of permastrikes, feeling that the system has the potential to be exceedingly arbitrary, but I have yet to have any longer encounters with DMs, so I can't comment on its use.

[Kiran]

I always love a discussion around this topic.

And I fully agree with those people who don't want to permanetly die, but, if the grind is your concern, the DM's/Head DM's tend to reward good deaths/roleplay if your character has caused enough ripples/for the good guys to have had fun chasing/rping around your character (If evil) - Typically over a couple of months as not to encourage people doing 1 small crime or big crime just to get a rcr token. You should not be looking to kill your character to gain a reward, but if it happens through roleplay, you can request it

Typically the DM's are aware of the RP and you can request a rcr. In my experience the rcr token is 75% or 100% which means if level 30 full XP, you start at level 28 and a bit.... so it ain't much of a grind back to 30. Again, I don't mind the grind or re-learning my characters, you meet a lot of new and interesting folk leveling up again. But I thought that it would be worth stressing, if the grind is what is keeping you back from having your characters perma killed, I wouldnt worry too much. Again, not just some random encounter in a wood where a orc you never rp'd with killed you and your like "Wooo, free rcr!" - That wont go down well.

Also if you made a big impact or influenced certain players in the game that are alive, you may get a memento in the world of characters you had which died. I have 2 currently in game which are tiny but, I admit it felt awesome hearing about as it was not something I requested and one of them I was unaware of for 3 months till someone told me randomly on discord.

End of the day however I always think it should be the players choice what they want to happen to their character, with perhaps some few exceptions.

If your character continues to break laws, murder, kill or so forth, the DM's should have authority to say enough is enough or to give you a character punishment. I am strongly against the whole "Prison rp" as your char is basically awol for 3 days and it offers nothing rp wise. Why not have the character watched by a npc he cant godmode whilst forced to clean the street, help in a local temple, so forth, people can then approach you and rp while you do your chore.

In turn, good guys, if they keep going to Zhentil keep shouting how awful the dreadlady dressed, or keep murdering red wizards on Duchal lands, those people should in turn also have a DM prod them and say "Next time, it may not end so well for you" So they know they may have to keep the murdering down for a week or two.

[RagingPeace]

I usually go by the three deaths imposes a perma death where countable deaths come by event-death or pvp-death. I would, however, never enforce such rules upon other players.

[Touri]

Hah. I take it as part of the world that you die and get back.

"Our party moved into a dungeon. One of the new members died for his first time. After he got ressurected he moaned, "Aaargh....what happened?". Ven chuckled and answered, " You died my friend, and we brought you back. Believe me, after the 10th time it doesn't feel that strange anymore."

[DaloLorn]

Hah. I take it as part of the world that you die and get back.

"Our party moved into a dungeon. One of the new members died for his first time. After he got ressurected he moaned, "Aaargh....what happened?". Ven chuckled and answered, " You died my friend, and we brought you back. Believe me, after the 10th time it doesn't feel that strange anymore."

Exactly. It might be more inconvenient in PnP, but it's by no means unheard of.

[Kaybrie]

I tend to treat death as merely a knockout when soloing/grinding where there are no real RP stakes. With other players, I go with the flow - if they went through the trouble of bringing me back via temple, raise scroll or spell, and are rp'ing it as such, then I go along with that. With DMs ... I do what the DMs tell me. =D

This for me.