Character Death (MvP & PvP/CvC)

[Wyatt]

A friendly reminder to keep this thread about the topic and not devolve into personal attacks because of disagreeing points of view. Criticize the topic, not the person posting it.

This message has been brought to you by the letter W.

[Balthomer]

Permadeath should be used as a vehicle for rp, not because you think it does a disservice to rp. If you feel that way feel free to delete your chars as they die, why force everyone to dl it? People spend time and effort on their chars.

Yes, permadeath should be used as a vehicle for RP...but please explain how this actually works? When does it work?

It is not about forcing people, it is about INVITING Players to step up to something.

Go ahead and set us an example then. You are the one that is inviting players, how many of your chars have you permakilled?

[Kaybrie]

Go ahead and set us an example then.

I can give an example.

Elias (Bobo) self-permed (At least I'm fairly sure it was a self perm) his character some 4-5 months ago. Aesa had grown quite fond of him as a student, and as a friend that she felt she could share things with. The impact of his death pushed Aesa to quit drinking, shape up and value and treat the people around her better. She since joined the Radiant Heart and aspires to be more then a drunken fighter on the coast. Yes, my RP with Elias was unfortunately over, but I still could use his death to create new avenues of RP for my character and those around me.

[Winterborne]

I've seen events where DMs notified people that failure would grant a permastrike.

I have not seen events where DMs said that failure would lead to real death, and I hope I never do, at least for spontaneous events everyone can show up to.

If a DM and a group of players want to arrange an event that has high risk and high rewards I think that a standard process for approving something like that might be neat to have. But I think it would be very rarely if ever used by most people.

At the end of the day, the desire for real, harsh consequences for day to day RP is one that I don't think is shared by a lot of players.

As for rules about this, they already exist. Nobody playerside can enforce a permanent death on anyone else.

If people want to decide to enforce consequences on themselves they can but there's not going to be anything to say the opposing party has to do the same. And frankly I think that's fine. Eventually you'll get to know people with a similar mindset and if you want to do something like that with like minded players, go for it.

[Steve]

Also...what got me thinking about this Character Death issue once again, as it applies to our Sandbox, is a recent CvC (or, if you must, PvP) that was possibly first or second best PvP with RP moments I've had on the BGTSCC in my 10 years playing here.

The Player (and thus the Character) defeated by Character after some fun RP and then mechanical PvP, but the RP end of the encounter was that my PC was left unconscious, thus leaving a memory of the incident and allowing for future RP, if such was to manifest.

But what I realized afterward is that I could have total disregard for this encounter. And, in the past, I've had my PCs totally mutilated and destroyed after a PvP encounter...which how could I disregard THAT, you know? Additionally, I've had my own CvC "wins" totally disregarded by Players. Which is why for many years I've done whatever possible to avoid CvC/PvP encounters, because of the result.

But, to reiterate, I'm more interested in how the Limitless Deaths / Eternal Life aspect of our PCs affects our RP in the Setting, with the NPCs and the environment, AND how also those NPCs seem to be equally Eternal (with respect to Canon Lore, of course).

[Hoihe]

Permadeath literally prevents me from roleplaying properly.


For me, to roleplay - as in to actually mantle my character rather than pretend to be some DM and play "Puppet-master" with a bunch of hollow gimmicks, I require 3 things:
1st) Reservations shelved
2nd) Some ease-in time
3rd) Knowledge that whatever happens, I will always be able to use the same medium to experience the same unique perspective different from my own. The perspective may evolve or devolve, the world around it may shatter, but as long as it is continuous and unending, I can feel calm.

Cue a DM event where I was forced to attend because my character is a pseudo-paladin regarding some things. We were told it's a permastrike event. Before that, I was enjoying the pre-battle anxiety and dread. Suddenly, I was jolted out of it and put into an anxious state where I felt more like a DM puppeting a bunch of NPCs than actually roleplaying.

The event, which would have been awesome and could have afforded me a plethora of amazing/dreadful emotions and sensations to experience, became a stale and anxiety-inducing "I'm literally playing Dota 2" thing.

Only after the risk disappeared could I ease back in, and then it was great once more. Hundred of elven NPCs died, my character would react to such in a rather strong emotional way, so I could mantle that emotion and cried along.

For a bunch of no-name no-consequence NPCs I never met.

If you want tragic emotions, just kill an NPC. One is as good an RPer as you claim, then one should be able to feel the same degree of tragic loss as from a PC.





As for how it affects RP?

BGTSCC is a roleplaying server where one must be In-Character at all times. To play as if permadeath didn't exist is to metagame OOC rules.

Your character doesn't know if they'll return. You as a player do. Play as your character, not as yourself. Boom. Serious RP even without needing OOC punishment and robbing people.




As a side note. "consequence free race change" - got kicked out of guild, lost best friend due to it (social loss), lost friend (retirement), lost another friend (tragedies too much, retired as well). Of that, 1 got fixed after 2 years of trying. Of that, 1 got fixed randomly after like 3 years. Of that, 2 will never be fixed.

[Steve]

Go ahead and set us an example then. You are the one that is inviting players, how many of your chars have you permakilled?

I've never had a permastrike given to any of my PCs. Which is part of my point—a number of my characters easily stuck their necks out, but had zero impression that their would be consequence. And it's not like both Players and DMs are not aware I've been asking for it for years!

But, if you actually mean how many Characters have I "killed off," in terms that I developed them and their story and participated in serious storybuilding and now they shall never surface again on the Sword Coast?

Easily, 5 of them.

[Hoihe]

Go ahead and set us an example then. You are the one that is inviting players, how many of your chars have you permakilled?

I've never had a permastrike given to any of my PCs. Which is part of my point—a number of my characters easily stuck their necks out, but had zero impression that their would be consequence. And it's not like both Players and DMs are not aware I've been asking for it for years!

But, if you actually mean how many Characters have I "killed off," in terms that I developed them and their story and participated in serious storybuilding and now they shall never surface again on the Sword Coast?

Easily, 5 of them.

If you want permastrikes to exist, implement this first:

If one dies in a permastrike risk event in a way that would grant the strike...

they can:
A)take the strike
B)Lose an appropriate amount of levels (I suggedted 1st death 10, 2nd 20, 3rd+ back to level 1 with no xp)
c)Lose your entire inventory. I guess mules and the banking system can mitigate it.

Then you can have permastrike events. The way it is now, you either break character or quit the server.

[jclay65]

Maybe one of the brilliant program scriptwriters can create an option you can select during character creation to simply have the character deleted upon death. Wouldn't that be exciting?

[Mursey]

(Reposted from the High Risk/High Reward Thread)

I started off playing D&D with the red box, and still run "old school" type Pen and Paper games where the risk of death is very real I far prefer playing pen and paper games where real jeopardy, especially the risk of permanent character death, is very much on the cards. If that means months of my campaign prep work goes down the drain because of a TPK early in the campaign, then so be it. I shrug, put the campaign away, and bring it out again in a year or two to run it with another group. There are no special snowflakes with grand destiny's in my campaigns.


All of which is my convulated way of saying that, as a player, I'm totally down with the risk of permadeath in any event, but especially in high risk/high reward events. RP often seems far less satisfying (and combat much less thrilling) in the absence of permadeath. It's presence encourages my fellow players and I to think around problems creatively rather than just hacking through them in yet another combat encounter.

GoT would be far less thrilling and visceral if you didn't tune in every week absolutely terrified that your favourite character would die.

[Hoihe]

(Reposted from the High Risk/High Reward Thread)

I started off playing D&D with the red box, and still run "old school" type Pen and Paper games where the risk of death is very real I far prefer playing pen and paper games where real jeopardy, especially the risk of permanent character death, is very much on the cards. If that means months of my campaign prep work goes down the drain because of a TPK early in the campaign, then so be it. I shrug, put the campaign away, and bring it out again in a year or two to run it with another group. There are no special snowflakes with grand destiny's in my campaigns.


All of which is my convulated way of saying that, as a player, I'm totally down with the risk of permadeath in any event, but especially in high risk/high reward events. I often find RP far less satisfying (and combat much less thrilling) in the absence of permadeath. And I often find it encourages my fellow players and I to think around problems creatively rather than just hacking through them in yet another combat encounter.

GoT would be far less thrilling and visceral if you didn't tune in every week absolutely terrified that your favourite character would die.

One doesn't need OOC tools to fear death ICly.

Knowing whether death is permanent or not is OOC knowledge.

We're roleplaying and are limited to IC knowledge.

Knowing whether or not death is real shouldn't affect your "thrill" at all nor should it affect your behaviour. Your character doesn't know. Only you know that you're not going to be forced to uninstall and quit so you can actually log in without fear.

As for "High risk events". Heaven's sake no. Nothing is worse than a paladin-esque character that is forced to break character/be ICly ostracized because they break their vows due to some dumb OOCly-enforced risk.

[Mursey]

True.

But in the absence of permadeath you often see players doing stupid things (high risk for very low reward, or even near-certain death for no reward) that they would not for one second consider doing if they knew they did not have a safety net.

So many players complain that DM events turn into hack and slash dungeon crawls. Would that still be the case if player's risked losing their favourite character? Or might they stop and really think about alternative ways to overcome obstacles other than murdering everything in sight?


And if you don't want to have to RP the inherent drama of having your Paladin be forced to choose between death or maiming and breaking their vow? Just don't play a Paladin.

[Mursey]

I mean, everyone remembers Lancelot, the Knight who broke his vows, slept with his King and best-friends wife, murdered some of his sworn brothers to save her, and then redeemed himself by turning up to fight alongside that same King in a desperate battle he knew he couldn't survive.

As for the perfect knights? Can most people even remember if it was perfect Galahad or perfect Percival who found the grail? How many of us can even remember anything else those two did at all?

[Hoihe]

I mean, everyone remembers Lancelot, the Knight who broke his vows, slept with his King and best-friends wife, murdered some of his sworn brothers to save her, and then redeemed himself by turning up to fight alongside that same King in a desperate battle he knew he couldn't survive.

As for the perfect knights? Can most people even remember if it was perfect Galahad or perfect Percival who found the grail? How many of us can even remember anything else those two did at all?

Does anyone remember the characters that died on BG? I'm willing to bet that other than Isabella, nobody does.


Yay?


And here's your little solution for "forcing people to play seriously": Mandate the fact that knowing death is not permanent is metagaming OOC rules, thus rulebreaking. Boom! You both have your cake and get to eat it too.

Could also go a step further and give the option:
A) Permastrike
B) Level/item reset.


I feel like those who hold no value in a character will recoil at the idea of level/item reset on death.

I tried suggesting it before. Even those who support permadeath in this thread HEAVILY opposed the idea of losing items when you die. The people who call those poor RPers for opposing permadeath were suddenly against it.

[Bobthehero]

I can see losing items really strongly opposed, since most stuff you get is luck based, if you find something really cool and thematic, there's little to no chance you'll find another item like it down the road. At least an exp/level penalty can be recovered.