How to achieve a happy and content playerbase

[Hoihe]

If the new admins implement alternate rules to permastrikes in form of:

• "If an event would provide a permastrike, upon being egligible, a player may nullify the strike by surrendering every +3 and above item on their person and losing 15 levels. Player may choose to keep an item with its stats reduced below the treshold, if they wish to retain it for memento reasons."
• "If an event would provide a permadeath, upon being egligible, a player may nullify permadeath by surrendering every item with mechanical or plot impact and resetting to level 1 with no XP refund. RCRing XP to that character is expressly forbidden until they have reached level 20 at least once since administration. Any items player wishes to carry over are reset to the power level of +1 equipment."
• "Injuries, diseases not healable by conventional player-accessible means may be removed without any lasting impact by surrendering relevant plot items and half of all items, starting from strongest, that are above +3 in power or reducing their stats to be under. 10 levels are removed from the PC as well."

I will be the happiest player ever and provided nobody attempts to force retcons, likely complain nevermore.

[Tekill]

Would this rule actually involve the start of the handing out of Permastrikes?
I have never gotten one....

Do you still get three strikes before permanent death?

If they will start being distributed, when, where why and how will the strikes be distributed?
Do you get a strike only upon dying in DM Events?
or
Do you get a strike only for a certain kind of death in a DM Event, only after DM deems it Permastike worthy?

I am thinking its more important to know how the strikes will be handed out more than how to get rid of strikes once you have one.

[Snarfy]

I've been playing my main for 9 years, and never been given a permastrike. I've been KO'd in events... like, a lot. I gave myself a permastrike in year 1 or 2, and came pretty close to dying in a few events, but that's about it.

The only PC's I've known to get permastrikes are... uhh, zero. DM's probably don't give them out that often because A. Players would whine endlessly, B. Too much paperwork, or C. It's pretty heavy-handed, in most cases. Unless you're acting like Rambo in a super critical event, or being a constant PVP griefer who dies all the time, you're not going to get one.

I'm sure there's a few bad guy whackjob PVP mongers somewhere that have have earned the odd one, and I've known lots of players who voluntarily give themselves strikes, and some players simply decide their characters were dead(and kudos to them), but, otherwise, permastrikes are, IMHO, a total non-issue.

[SoThereIWas]

Perma-strikes are from breaking laws, often where I have seen them given.

I was given 1 without breaking laws and was told I would be handed another if I got captured again, but this time it was a warning if it was done when moving to and from the Underdark in my leisure.

They get handed out, more often than not when you break laws is my point. But I guess capture is another one outside of that.

EDIT: I also volunteered that if my PC was caught doing something specific (They where never found out that I can tell) then the DM's would be free to kill them automatically. But that's really it on my end. So I would not worry too much about it if your not doing a bunch of shady stuff IC. A lot from the good cities do shady stuff half the time and go un reported to authorities IC that I can tell most of the time, so I would not worry much about it either way.

[Wolfrayne]

I have no idea why the permadeath discussion ever happens. I have only ever seen 2 permadeaths actually handed out and they were both at the players request... DM's will never hand out a perma unless its under the most dire circumstances so why do we need to discuss it?

[SoThereIWas]

I have no idea why the permadeath discussion ever happens.

I think it's due to the fact at times it makes sense and at other times it doesn't, so it can be hard to cut through the confusion. There are more than a few of us that had to fight for our PC's to remain and shove facts forward, and so on.

It's not quite the... one situation fits all I'm afraid.

[Zanniej]

Permadeath and permastrikes are not on the admin agenda, as the current situation seems to be perfectly fine.

I know how many permastrikes are given out, and you have to do something quite silly to get one. (Good day Duke Eltan, I am a drow and would like to attack you right in the middle of Baldur's Gate! Oh no, the entire Flaming Fist is upon me! How will I ever get out!) Cue in PermaStrike
... Sounds silly, doesn't it?

It is quite much as most people have pointed out here. If you RP in a normal way, you'll most likely never even get close to getting in touch with permastrikes.

[Hoihe]

I have no idea why the permadeath discussion ever happens. I have only ever seen 2 permadeaths actually handed out and they were both at the players request... DM's will never hand out a perma unless its under the most dire circumstances so why do we need to discuss it?

A number of players constantly start threads wanting permadeath and "high risk" events to be more common, or to have the ability to inflict such. One player even stated that they want a toggle that says "By interacting with my PC, you consent to be permamaimed or killed."

On BG discord there is a constant and near never-ending stream of people making fun of those who hate permadeath, in one case someone actively made fun of someone for refusing to let them perma their pc with necromancy, calling said player a bad RPer.

DM golem has said publically that all their events carry a permarisk for "foolish actions." This is a non-zero probability.

Arguments that participation is optional ignore the existence of peer pressure. There was a time when a guild kept pvping people left and right. There was also a guild of knightly types that only did pve and dm events. Because of the knighlty guilds preference vs pvp fest, they were ICly made fun of, new players discouraged from joining them as they "dont do anything about the necromancers."

Imagine playing a character and being faced with IC consequences for valid OOC preferences. This guild was active and constantly did player events patrolling the roads etc.

The exact same scenario will play out if your character is supposed to participate in something with permarisk due to IC, but you as the player would quit id you lost said PC.

In short, there is a non-zero, in fact, non-negligible probability of receiving a permastrike if playing a paladin/bladesinger archetype.

This non-zero probability causes undue stress and makes such archetypes be gatekept.

By introducing my proposal as alternate risk, one will allow those who absolutely and utterly hate permamaim/death to play using only IC considerations, not OOC considerations.

Right now i actively screen people i interact with based on the probability of them pulling the "good roleplayers permadie/maim" card on me if we were to have cvc.


One might argue the above system doesnt hurt as much. However, do youbreally think the player with 40 orcs/necromancers/assassin alts cares if they lose one of them? Nope. So why should those who care and will quit the server from such be punished like those who just make 100 more alts?

And those who would take this option would feel it hard. Those with a million alts can make millions easily. Those with a single character and a heavy character focus will have difficulties.

There is no reason NOT to introduce the above described alternate rules for consequences.

[Steve]

I vote for a future Server where there are low risk events without even a hint of Permadeath involved for Hoihe, and there are high risk events with rewards and consequences for everyone else.

Alternatively, adding to the Official Rules of Permadeath on BGTSCC a “Hoihe Clause” that states: “...it is altogether possible with Role-play to earn back a permastrike that is noted against your PC for past actions.”

[SoThereIWas]

DM Golem does hand out perma strikes with ease that i can tell. Harlos was to be involved in two events at one point, one i pulled out of prior due to IC reason. The other was a "all or nothing." As in I was planning to accept Permadeath on that one until he got captured as others tried to intercept his travels. So basically they did the worst thing possible by trying to kill him when he was trying to get himself killed in the one event. So he was still alive.


Point is, often he is willing to hand it out like candy. But keep in mind these events are just outright plain suicidal. The ones i was to be in at times. And he normally tells you ahead of time like most DMs i believe.

[Zanniej]

Based on the permastrike records, strikes are definitely not being handed out like candy

But yes, Golem does seem to accommodate higher risk events to those that appreciate it.
In most cases however, you will have more than enough forewarning when permastrikes might be involved, and even then you can easily avoid it with a healthy dose of (roleplayed) common sense

[chad878262]

Hello everyone, always good to stop by and see the same dead horse still being beaten.

Golem being one of the DMs I was lucky enough to participate in more events with than others (maybe a half dozen or more between his stints as DM) I wouldn't say he aggressively hands out permastrikes...I never received one or saw or heard of anyone else receiving one in the events for which I was involved, which included multiple times sneaking deep in to enemy territory and spying on various big baddies, certainly something for which (had he wanted to) could have resulted in a severe case of death.

This is not to argue that such strikes aren't given out, nor to argue if he gives out more than others... It is more to say that, just maybe it is like Zanniej stated in his first post, they are given out when your character does truly, horrendously silly (some might say stupid/crazy) things for which the only realistic result is death.

Ok, carry on, hope everyone is well.

[SoThereIWas]

yes, the events i was in you had to be a little crazy to join in with the rest. As i said. That could be why.

[Deathgrowl]

I don't think the very common, virtually no-RP-PvP encounters should ever lead to permastrikes. Personally, I'd say it should only happen in assassinations (and should swing both ways - if the assassin dies, he/she gets a strike [but this is all a complex discussion with far more criteria I won't go into here]). Either way, one player should never be able to impose permastrikes upon another player's characters. Permastrikes are DM domain.

But in DM events, I'm all for the high risk. That is, provided the reward is proportionally high. Or if someone does something stupid, like trying to assassinate Duchess Liia inside the palace. Or tries to charge the devil army alone.

The point is, though: If you aren't prepared to accept the consequences of playing a heroic or villainous character, don't play a heroic or villainous character. Don't play a character that is willing to take the risks if you yourself aren't. Play your character according to what you want to achieve with the character. If it's survival, then play it safe. If you demand fool-proof survival through the most suicidal or heroic deeds, you're asking people to accept a Mary Sue.

[Fury_US]

If the new admins implement alternate rules to permastrikes in form of:

• "If an event would provide a permastrike, upon being egligible, a player may nullify the strike by surrendering every +3 and above item on their person and losing 15 levels. Player may choose to keep an item with its stats reduced below the treshold, if they wish to retain it for memento reasons."
• "If an event would provide a permadeath, upon being egligible, a player may nullify permadeath by surrendering every item with mechanical or plot impact and resetting to level 1 with no XP refund. RCRing XP to that character is expressly forbidden until they have reached level 20 at least once since administration. Any items player wishes to carry over are reset to the power level of +1 equipment."
• "Injuries, diseases not healable by conventional player-accessible means may be removed without any lasting impact by surrendering relevant plot items and half of all items, starting from strongest, that are above +3 in power or reducing their stats to be under. 10 levels are removed from the PC as well."

I will be the happiest player ever and provided nobody attempts to force retcons, likely complain nevermore.

I honestly don't grasp the reason behind this, nor why the subject is called "how to achieve a happy and content playerbase" when very plainly the suggested changes are only to make one player happy.

The reason to not implement a new cumbersome rule regarding permadeath/permastrike (which I have yet to witness a permadeath that was not a player's own wishes) is because there is absolutely no need for it in the server setting.

If listening to the ongoing discussion regarding higher risk scenarios gives you angst, your best recourse is to mute the channel and stop reading. It's a pointless debate that will never change the system of the server. Permadeath and Permarisk have always been something so easily avoidable that those who prefer them very much need to impose them on themselves and their game play.