05 Nov, 2009, Tonitrus wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
I was reading a wikipedia link on permadeath that KaVir posted in another thread, and it got me thinking. I decided to post this here instead of derailing the other thread.

wikipedia said:
Proponents of permanent death want the risk of permadeath to give additional significance to their in-game actions. While games without permanent death often impose an in-game penalty for restoring a dead PC, the penalty is relatively minor compared to being forced to create a new PC. Therefore, the primary change in experience permanent death creates is that it makes a player's decisions more significant; without permanent death there is less incentive for the player to consider in-game actions seriously. Those players seeking to risk permanent death feel that the more severe consequences heighten the sense of involvement and achievement derived from their characters. The increased risk renders acts of heroism and bravery within the gameworld significant; the player has risked a much larger investment of time. Without permanent death, such actions are "small actions." However, in an online game, permadeath generally means starting over from the beginning, isolating the player of the now-dead character from former comrades.


As a proponent of permadeath, these all sound like things that I would say. There is also another argument I'd add in favor of permadeath: The ability of players to deal with their own problems. Players who annoy enough other players will find themselves dead. I don't really care for administration, so this is a perfect solution to the problem for me.

Given that I endeavor to maintain objectivity in most* things, I also made a point to read the counter-arguments fairly carefully.

* Lie (probably)

wikipedia said:
However, in an online game, permadeath generally means […] isolating the player of the now-dead character from former comrades.


This sucks, but it is an important part of permadeath, I wouldn't dream of changing it.

wikipedia said:
Those players who prefer not to play with permanent death are generally unwilling to accept the risk of the large penalties associated with it. Paying the penalty of permanent death often means a great deal of time spent to regain levels, power, influence, or emotional investment that the previous character possessed. This increased investment of time can dissuade casual players. […] Some players dislike the way that permanent death causes players to be much more wary than they would in regular games; they argue that this cautiousness reduces the heroic atmosphere that games seek to provide. Ultimately this can reduce play to slow, repetitive, low-risk play, commonly called "grinding". Of course, the significance of heroism without the risk of permanent death is dramatically reduced. Most MMORPGs do not allow character creation at an arbitrary experience level, even if the player has already achieved that level with a now-dead character, providing a powerful disincentive for permanent death.


Firstly, I would not mind the loss of casual gamers or Achiever types who are unwilling to accept risks. I'm not particularly fond of those sorts of players anyway.

As I do not believe in levels or leveling, the "leveling" process would not have to be done or repeated for any game I were to design. I favor non-linear skill-based systems that don't cap. Also, I like the idea of retaining a percentage of accumulated "XP" (probably 25%, maybe lower) for the creation of the next character, as having your character killed is enough of a kick in the balls that you should generally get something for it. As for the "heroism" objection, I do not agree with it, obviously. I don't tend to find fantasy games particularly "heroic" for the same reason I don't find Superman or Walker Texas Ranger heroic. Call of Cthulhu sounds more like my idea of "heroic", namely, fairly weak characters deciding to attempt to overcome boundless evil with the certain knowledge that they'll probably die and go insane. That said, I am partially concerned about the other "objection", namely that permadeath will induce excessive cautiousness. Cautiousness is good. People should be cautiousness. Too much caution leads to no-one bothering to play the damn game, in which case I may as well run a Talker.

So, if I were to run a game that featured permadeath, how could I avoid creating an environment of excessive cautiousness? No one (myself included) likes to have their characters deleted, but I believe that the loss of characters in this way leads to more compelling roleplay and a vastly more immersive environment. Personally, Immersion is just about the only gameplay concept I care about. Obviously, I would not choose to employ a diku-like system of combat, where all fights are either "to the death" or "to the flee", nor would it be necessary to kill someone to overpower them. However, if death can happen, and it *must* happen (in order to produce the appropriate experience of dread), how can it be implemented in such a way as to induce caution/fear in players without it being so overbearing that they fear to do anything at all?

One obvious way is to leave such occurrences to situations where they are appropriate. Trying to steal a cookie from a random mob should not lead to a fight to the death. But in any sort of vaguely realistic combat system, the random chance to be killed outright should exist, meaning there must always be a small, however unlikely, chance that a character will be permanently killed.

Aside from making these chances unlikely and limiting it to the appropriate scope, I don't have any other ideas for limiting the fear-factor offhand.

Note: This would be from the perspective of a low-fantasy theme. Magic would be rare and powerful, so always having a handy cleric to resurrect the person in question would be highly unlikely. Lower level medical skills might be possible, however. I should also add that XP would be gold-based, namely that gold is spent to buy skills. I really don't like this system, but it's easily handled every design problem I've ever thrown at it, unlike every other system I've come up with for XP.

[Edit: I should add that gold is used to buy XP, not XP itself. The carryover of XP would not necessarily consist of being given more gold (although that would be an acceptable selection by the player in question)]

I could also have "rescue mobs" in certain locations. Possibly also people could hire "pets" that are medics or whatever else, but I would think that whatever situation leads to the character's demise would also tend to lead to the demise of whomever is trying to save him.

Useful comments/criticisms appreciated.
05 Nov, 2009, ATT_Turan wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Tonitrus said:
Firstly, I would not mind the loss of casual gamers or Achiever types who are unwilling to accept risks. I'm not particularly fond of those sorts of players anyway.


My personal reaction to that statement notwithstanding, I would point out that, presuming the game you propose is to be a MUD, casual gamers are (in my experience) your largest audience. In all the MUD's I've played regularly on, most players were regular in terms of their logging on, but large amounts of time were spent socializing and chatting - the gaming was definitely casual. You might get lonely on your game.

Tonitrus said:
As I do not believe in levels or leveling, the "leveling" process would not have to be done or repeated for any game I were to design. I favor non-linear skill-based systems that don't cap.


Whether or not it consists of actual levels, you're still talking about re-accruing character statistics you had already previously accrued. Unless there is no form of character advancement, you are asking your players to risk their investment of time, as the article described. Don't take my comment about advancement to be a bad thing - a sort of more advanced Gladiator Pits idea where you created a character from a large selection of talents and fighting styles and abilities to adventure around with and fight other people could work just fine, then when you die that character is done. The character creation process itself can offer replay value, and of course people who win fights rather than lose them could build up some sort of rewards, either to their character or (perhaps more fairly) in terms of reputation or standings.

However, having advancement within the game (such as a skill system that you specify "doesn't cap" which implies depth and capacity for development) means that players can stand to lose things they've worked for, whether you play name games with it or not.

Tonitrus said:
Also, I like the idea of retaining a percentage of accumulated "XP" (probably 25%, maybe lower) for the creation of the next character, as having your character killed is enough of a kick in the balls that you should generally get something for it.


That's not a bad mechanics idea, but what's your justification for it? If one of the reasons for your dislike of respawning is the lack of realism, then you should have an explanation for the spontaneous appearance of adventurers who are more knowledgeable than all the other newcomers to the village.

Tonitrus said:
As for the "heroism" objection, I do not agree with it, obviously. I don't tend to find fantasy games particularly "heroic" for the same reason I don't find Superman or Walker Texas Ranger heroic.


Why? Does someone's chances of success affect the nature of their actions? Am I not a good person for getting a cat out of a tree, whether or not I have brittle bones and will die upon my own descent? You're entitled to your own opinions about games and characters, of course, but I don't think there's any cause for you to be using snide quotation marks toward Kal-El. :wink:

Tonitrus said:
That said, I am partially concerned about the other "objection", namely that permadeath will induce excessive cautiousness. Cautiousness is good. People should be cautiousness. Too much caution leads to no-one bothering to play the damn game, in which case I may as well run a Talker.

So, if I were to run a game that featured permadeath, how could I avoid creating an environment of excessive cautiousness?


This question reminds me of the Star Wars RPG systems (the ones based on the D20 system), especially the first of its ilk. It varied from base D&D in that what most games considered your hit points were very explicitly only representative of evasion - you had a very small number of actual hit points that never naturally increased, and any critical hit in combat would hit this pool directly. This means that max-level characters could be killed by a single critical hit by any enemy, from a Sith Lord to a stormtrooper to a jawa. Combine this with the fact that without magic there's no way to resurrect a dead character, and a lot of DM's spent a lot of time debating how to use or modify the system so that it continued to inspire caution in its players but didn't inspire cowardice when a fight was appropriate or necessary.

I think the ultimate answer to your question is to not make permadeath, as you described it, a random chance. Don't make there always be a small, however unlikely chance - make it a clearly defined phenomenon that will happen under specific conditions that a player can then use skill and savvy to avoid. After all, that's what we do in real life; we don't walk around worrying about the infinitesimal chance that a frozen turkey will accidentally drop from a cargo airplane and land precisely on our head, killing us instantly. Rather, we anticipate dangerous situations and look both ways before we cross the street, and hold onto railings when walking up and down stairs.

Likewise, make it clear when your players risk death. If they steal in front of a city guard, for example, they may view that as a capital offense and attack to kill - anyone else might simply try to punch you out and take his pet rock back. Perhaps lethal weaponry is both illegal and highly regulated in your world, and your players will most commonly be fighting against opponents who are using fists and saps, and the worst penalty for losing a regular fight is getting knocked out, breaking a few bones and getting your purse stolen. Then the more powerful bosses or the obviously dangerous enemies (such as the flaming half-demon spider dragon) deal lethal damage.
05 Nov, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
Three thoughts (in a hurry):

1) Characters can die and be reborn without being lost, or they can be associated. Gemstone let an account own a family name, so you (and only you) could create new characters that were related to your other characters. A dead character was replaced by a cousin or whatever, that retained many of the same in-game social statistics, and could inherit some small amount of property from a deceased character. Or just come up with a world where being reborn makes sense, so the character is not lost, just his numerical advances. Basically, the problem some people have with MMOs and most MUDs is not the lack of perma-death but the lack of severe consequences. If your MUD makes death _hurt_ without deleting the character, you'll appeal to those players. The only players really clamoring for real perma-death are the hard-core role-players, and those are rare.

2) Death should never be purely random. Instant death rooms are stupid. Accidentally wandering into a dangerous area and being insta-gibbed is stupid. Having a bad run of luck in fair combat and getting crit hit six times and dying is stupid. If nothing else, grant life credits. Let players be resurrected just like in a nromal MUD, but put a cap on how often it can happen. Try to make Life Credits something gained by contributing to the game experience rather than grinding (getting credits on level up or paying coin for them is not good). Life credits let a player "survive" a random mistake but doesn't allow them to "zerg" an enemy to win. Better yet, though, just make death deterministic. Death should arrive due to a truly stupid mistake on the player, not a roll of the dice or picking the secret best option that nobody can know without reading the code or dying six times to narrow down the choices.

3) Make "losing" fun. It's hard to do… but it's doable. There are games where dying is just frustrating, and there are games where dying is hilarious. There are games with long-running characters where a death experience is talked about for years. I don't have any objective criteria to define what makes those kinds of games, though – I just know that they exist and hence are possible. If I were to guess at what differentiates the two, it's that games where death is fun don't feel repetitive when you die a lot. Left 4 Dead is hilarious to die in. And you just end up playing the level over. But it's differnet when you play it over. Dying in a regular shooter or platformer means you just redo the exact same level over again, so it's boring. In most MUDs, you have to grind repetively to get anywhere. When you grind to get to level 20, it's boring as hell, but at least you get a feeling of accomplishment. When you have to grind the same freaking area to get _back_ to level 20, it's just obnoxious.
05 Nov, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
I'll just point to EVE-Online as a way to get all the good effects of perma-death, without actually having perma-death. :)

In that game, you are always flying a ship. When that ship blows up, it's gone. You lose it and all the equipment you had fitted to it, and all the cargo on board. Some percentage of your equipment and cargo will survive the explosion and be lootable (by you OR whomever killed you) on the wreck.

When your ship blows up, you get ejected in a lifepod. That pod is targetable, and whomever killed you can turn around and kill your pod as well. If that happens, your character dies and a new clone is activated at your home station. You lose whatever implants you had, and you can lose skills if you didn't pay for a good enough clone.

So, you get the good parts… you now have to work to buy or build another ship. The victor gets some spoils, and if you had expensive gear, that might be pretty good indeed. It's a clear victory, none of the pansy "dueling" that so many MMO's feature today. You can also control PvP via in-game mechanics, rather than a toggle. IE: You have NPC guards that punish the attackers in high security areas, and you let the players hash it out elsewhere, as you like.
05 Nov, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
ATT_Turan said:
Don't take my comment about advancement to be a bad thing - a sort of more advanced Gladiator Pits idea where you created a character from a large selection of talents and fighting styles and abilities to adventure around with and fight other people could work just fine, then when you die that character is done.

Actually the lack of advancement was a major hurdle for Gladiator Pits III in terms of player retention. It only started to pick up as players got to know each other, and worked out good times to log on - if people had lost their character when they died I don't think the mud would ever had reached critical mass (i.e., enough players online that newcomers would hang around instead of quitting).

ATT_Turan said:
Tonitrus said:
Also, I like the idea of retaining a percentage of accumulated "XP" (probably 25%, maybe lower) for the creation of the next character, as having your character killed is enough of a kick in the balls that you should generally get something for it.

That's not a bad mechanics idea, but what's your justification for it? If one of the reasons for your dislike of respawning is the lack of realism, then you should have an explanation for the spontaneous appearance of adventurers who are more knowledgeable than all the other newcomers to the village.

That's pretty much the same approach I used in Last City, except the percentage wasn't a flat figure - IIRC you kept 100% of your first 100 exp, 90% of your next 100, 80% of your next, etc, down to a minimum of 10%. It used total accumulated exp over all characters, so each time you created a new character you would always be at least as strong as when you last created (and in many cases you'd have higher exp, and could unlock new creation options).

The justification? None needed, you were a separate person, a recent arrival like any other new character. You had a new name, you probably had completely different abilities, etc. There wasn't anything IC to tie you to your previous character (although I do find elanthis's description of the family system in Gemstone rather appealing).


By the way, one of the references on Wikipedia really made me chuckle (I think it speaks more about misjudging players than the concept of permadeath, but it still makes for an amusing anecdote):

"For a few months, one type of "Star Wars" character, the rare and powerful Jedi, could be permanently killed. But when players began singling out Jedi characters for vicious attacks, Jedi players cried out for help, and last month LucasArts abandoned permadeath, a company spokeswoman said."
05 Nov, 2009, shasarak wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
Tonitrus said:
There is also another argument I'd add in favor of permadeath: The ability of players to deal with their own problems. Players who annoy enough other players will find themselves dead. I don't really care for administration, so this is a perfect solution to the problem for me.
Yeah, because no one in the entire history of MUDs has ever PK'ed anyone else without just cause. :rolleyes:

IMO, permadeath makes griefing infinitely worse. On a MUD with relatively mild death penalties, if an experienced, skilled player decides to harass a less experienced one, the worst that can happen is that the less experienced player will suffer a mild penalty. On a permadeath MUD you are giving bullies the power to inflict full-scale character deletion on anyone they choose to pick on. Effectively you're giving griefers immortal-level powers.
05 Nov, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
I'll just point to EVE-Online as a way to get all the good effects of perma-death, without actually having perma-death. :)

In my opinion, the main redeeming feature of permadeath is that you can permanently eliminate your rivals - assassinate the king so that a new ruler has to take the throne, kill your clan leader so that you can take his place, kill the witnesses so that nobody can report your crimes, etc.

From what you describe, EVE-Online doesn't allow you to do that - if you kill someone, they'll just come back, and probably want revenge. Worse still it seems to particularly target newbies, who are too poor to afford decent cloning, while the rich elite can carry on without too much loss.

It is what I'd consider to be "the worst of both worlds".
05 Nov, 2009, Fizban wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
shasarak said:
Tonitrus said:
There is also another argument I'd add in favor of permadeath: The ability of players to deal with their own problems. Players who annoy enough other players will find themselves dead. I don't really care for administration, so this is a perfect solution to the problem for me.
Yeah, because no one in the entire history of MUDs has ever PK'ed anyone else without just cause. :rolleyes:

IMO, permadeath makes griefing infinitely worse. On a MUD with relatively mild death penalties, if an experienced, skilled player decided to harass a less experienced one, the worst that can happen is that the less experienced player will suffer a mild penalty. On a permadeath MUD you are giving bullies the power to inflict full-scale character deletion on anyone they choose to pick on. Effectively you're giving griefers immortal-level powers.


That's of course only one side of the coin, you can kill the "griefer" as well, bullies are less likely to bully when their actions can have such severe consequences too.

Then again there's a reason I play MUDs where "I felt like it" is a viable reason to pkill, as I'm the type of player that doesn't give a shit about roleplay.
05 Nov, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
Fizban said:
That's of course only one side of the coin, you can kill the "griefer" as well, bullies are less likely to bully when their actions can have such severe consequences too.

In my experience, many PK "griefers" act that way because they've beaten all the other challenges, and they're bored. Such players usually pick on those who don't yet pose a threat.

Without permadeath, your victim could eventually rise to your level and get their revenge. That at least provides some incentive not to kill them.

But with permadeath, you'd be able to permanently eliminate potential rivals. This actually provides you with an incentive to actively hunt down and kill other players while they're small, before they can become a threat to your powerbase. Allowing players to rise to your level is actually a strategic mistake (this was also one of my major complaints when I wrote my critique of Travian, the fact that not wiping out defenceless newbies - and thus ruining their gaming experience - would often cause you problems in the long term).
05 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Just thought I'd mention that it make perfect sense in some universes of fiction for the method for how you die to be the sole determinate in the actual outcome of your death.

For example, it may be completely valid in a Highlander game for a character to appear in a morgue some hours later after a death from trivial opponents such as horsed riders, arrows, beat cops, car wrecks, collasped castle walls, WW2 frags and the list goes on—But a permadeath could result from a specific set of test-rules which probably need not be said at this point.

But my point is, it very well make sense within a game to have conditional perma-death based on conditions met. I've never cared for the MUDs which give an option for permadeath at creation.

ALso while I'm rambling—It may could be an interesting system where a player had a "bank" of characters that shared certain resources that could never be completely destroyed upon a character death. Then it isn't such a hit to a players assets when one of his characters die. Especially if the focus on the game is controlling many actors in the story at once potentially. Perhaps in concert. Perhaps not. Of course, this approach means designing your game in a way that discourages putting too many eggs in one basket, so to speak.
05 Nov, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
Hmmm…

elanthis said:
Gemstone let an account own a family name, so you (and only you) could create new characters that were related to your other characters.


Runter said:
It may could be an interesting system where a player had a "bank" of characters that shared certain resources that could never be completely destroyed upon a character death. Then it isn't such a hit to a players assets when one of his characters die. Especially if the focus on the game is controlling many actors in the story at once potentially.

How about a mud where you don't even have a specific character, but each player instead creates a clan (in the sense of an extended family related by kinship and descent). You then take on the role of individuals within that clan - they wouldn't even need to be persistant, as exp would be awarded to the clan itself rather than to individuals, and spent on things that aided the clan as a whole. Should you die, you simply pick another clan member to play. Perhaps the mud could even allow multiplaying through the same account - you could connect to your account with several sessions and simultaneously play several members of your own clan.

The same approach would also work well for a Spore-style game, where each player represented their own species.

This is perhaps also one of the few situations where "number of lives" could make thematic sense. You'd use up lives through death, and earn more lives through reproduction.
05 Nov, 2009, Confuto wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
Something that I've contemplated is giving dead players a task to complete before they can return to life. With each subsequent death, the task gets a little more difficult and if they're unable to complete it within a given time-frame their soul is severed from their body, so to speak, and they die permanently. You could have other avenues of escape, such as bargaining with the ruler of the underworld for more time, selling your soul, etc. Makes the most sense in a fantasy setting, obviously, but I think it would be fairly neat - even if it didn't result in inevitable perma-death at some point.

I wouldn't call what EVE Online has perma-death, as you generally retain your skills (if you're well prepared) and the end result is simply having to replace a bunch of lost equipment, which can be thought of as grinding back up several levels.

I think elanthis hit the nail on the head with his three points, and I particularly agree with the idea that death should be fun. Unfortunately it's a pretty difficult balance to strike when you want to do significant damage to a character as a punishment for death.

Quote
How about a mud where you don't even have a specific character, but each player instead creates a clan (in the sense of an extended family related by kinship and descent). You then take on the role of individuals within that clan - they wouldn't even need to be persistant, as exp would be awarded to the clan itself rather than to individuals, and spent on things that aided the clan as a whole. Should you die, you simply pick another clan member to play. Perhaps the mud could even allow multiplaying through the same account - you could connect to your account with several sessions and simultaneously play several members of your own clan.

Sounds a bit like The Sims.
05 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
A game that comes to mind is Fire Emblem where you command an army of characters (not generic characters). When a character dies on the battlefield they are permanently spent. It was quite a fun game in its many incarnations. I think the permadeath debate really lends itself to different genres better than others.
05 Nov, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
Fizban said:
shasarak said:
Tonitrus said:
There is also another argument I'd add in favor of permadeath: The ability of players to deal with their own problems. Players who annoy enough other players will find themselves dead. I don't really care for administration, so this is a perfect solution to the problem for me.
Yeah, because no one in the entire history of MUDs has ever PK'ed anyone else without just cause. :rolleyes:

IMO, permadeath makes griefing infinitely worse. On a MUD with relatively mild death penalties, if an experienced, skilled player decided to harass a less experienced one, the worst that can happen is that the less experienced player will suffer a mild penalty. On a permadeath MUD you are giving bullies the power to inflict full-scale character deletion on anyone they choose to pick on. Effectively you're giving griefers immortal-level powers.


That's of course only one side of the coin, you can kill the "griefer" as well, bullies are less likely to bully when their actions can have such severe consequences too.

Then again there's a reason I play MUDs where "I felt like it" is a viable reason to pkill, as I'm the type of player that doesn't give a shit about roleplay.


For one thing, the clones are not expensive. It's more of a "remember to do it after you get podded" thing, than a "OMG, I'll have to farm for weeks to get a new clone" thing. My character's clone costs about 15 million ISK. To compare, the ship I fly costs 100 million ISK, the missile launchers I equip on it costs 50 million each, and I can fit 6 of them. You get the idea.

Also, EVE manages to do what 90% of the other MMO's out there fail at, and fail at big time. It gets people to organize into large scale groups and work together to accomplish their own goals. Sure, plenty of games have guilds, but go take a look at any random game out there…. how many of the people IN guilds spend half their time soloing? In EVE, it's not really possible to solo if you're taking part in the PvP side of things, no matter how good you are. On the flip side, it's really easy for a newbie to join a fleet and actually feel good about helping, not just tagging along for loot.

In short, it isn't perma-death, because yes… your character survives and retains your skills. However, it is costly, and that cost drives many players to band together. Some for protection, some for revenge, some to prey upon the weak who venture out of the semi-safe areas.

I guess it depends… do you want your multi-player game to really BE a multi-player game? Or do you want it to be a bunch of people logged in soloing the same content and occasionally fighting each other for kicks/bragging rights/etc? If you're focusing on group play, many of these griefing issues go away, as do quite a few balance issues.
05 Nov, 2009, ATT_Turan wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
From what you describe, EVE-Online…seems to particularly target newbies, who are too poor to afford decent cloning, while the rich elite can carry on without too much loss.

It is what I'd consider to be "the worst of both worlds".


Actually, it works fairly well. When your ship is blown up in combat, you automatically cash in the insurance program you had purchased for that ship. At the lower newbie levels, your insurance payout is often enough to cover a new ship, your new clone, and most if not all of the equipment you need for that ship - you often lose very little except the time spent reaccruing these things. At higher levels, you'll be using higher-level equipment for your ship and the insurance payout will often cover just the cost of your ship, not your clone or the quite expensive modules. On top of this, a higher-level character will also have had more expensive (and numerous) implants in their body that get destroyed upon its death. Overall, death is definitely more painful the bigger you are.
05 Nov, 2009, ATT_Turan wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
How about a mud where you don't even have a specific character, but each player instead creates a clan (in the sense of an extended family related by kinship and descent). You then take on the role of individuals within that clan - they wouldn't even need to be persistant, as exp would be awarded to the clan itself rather than to individuals, and spent on things that aided the clan as a whole. Should you die, you simply pick another clan member to play. Perhaps the mud could even allow multiplaying through the same account - you could connect to your account with several sessions and simultaneously play several members of your own clan.

The same approach would also work well for a Spore-style game, where each player represented their own species.

This is perhaps also one of the few situations where "number of lives" could make thematic sense. You'd use up lives through death, and earn more lives through reproduction.


This is an interesting idea, and I could see something like this doing well given the popularity of games like Mafia Wars.
05 Nov, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
shasarak said:
IMO, permadeath makes griefing infinitely worse. On a MUD with relatively mild death penalties, if an experienced, skilled player decides to harass a less experienced one, the worst that can happen is that the less experienced player will suffer a mild penalty. On a permadeath MUD you are giving bullies the power to inflict full-scale character deletion on anyone they choose to pick on. Effectively you're giving griefers immortal-level powers.

I've seen quite a few people who quit after being killed over the years, even when losing nothing substantial, and consciously choosing to engage in PK.

I think part of the problem might be psychological, if a person feels they didn't stand a chance in a pvp fight it becomes a form of rape, and many people won't put up with that. One solution is to increase exp gains and make fights last longer, allowing players to flee in pvp situations. One reason permadeath muds work might be that the developers actively try to make death a rare event.
05 Nov, 2009, Tonitrus wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
Holy crap. I was not expecting this much information. I'm going to try to reply to everything in this post, which is probably impossible. I'll also edit out a bunch of crap in the interest of not having a(nother?) novel-length post.

(Also, I'm typing this all out semi-manually in vim, so if I misquote anyone or misspell anyones name, I apologize)

ATT_Turan said:
[…] a sort of more advanced Gladiator Pits idea where you created a character from a large selection of talents and fighting styles and abilities to adventure around with and fight other people could work just fine, then when you die that character is done. The character creation process itself can offer replay value […]

This is my goal, to have each character be completely different, skillwise. I'd like my skill system to be varied enough that people trying to make the same character over and over will have difficulty remembering all the specifics of that character concept, and thus make slightly different characters each time.
ATT_Turan said:
That's not a bad mechanics idea, but what's your justification for it? If one of the reasons for your dislike of respawning is the lack of realism, then you should have an explanation for the spontaneous appearance of adventurers who are more knowledgeable than all the other newcomers to the village.

I don't see a need for a justification. How is it realistic for all "newcomers" to have the same skill level? And what does a "new player" even mean, from a roleplay perspective? As different, unrelated, characters, it only makes sense for their skill levels to be different.
ATT_Turan said:
Don't make there always be a small, however unlikely chance - make it a clearly defined phenomenon that will happen under specific conditions that a player can then use skill and savvy to avoid. After all, that's what we do in real life; we don't walk around worrying about the infinitesimal chance that a frozen turkey will accidentally drop from a cargo airplane and land precisely on our head, killing us instantly. Rather, we anticipate dangerous situations and look both ways before we cross the street, and hold onto railings when walking up and down stairs.

I am reluctant to commit to this, but you're probably right. Someone gave me a BESMd20 book for some reason (I like BESM, I don't like d20) and it had an optional damage mechanic that I like. There were no hitpoints, only a "damage save", and failing it accrued penalties for further rolls, and could lead to stun, or mortally wounded. You basically didn't die outright, you'd be incapacitated/bleeding in such a way that you could still act, but if you chose to do anything "strenuous", your status would shift to "Dying" and you were probably screwed.
ATT_Turan said:
Likewise, make it clear when your players risk death. […] Perhaps lethal weaponry is both illegal and highly regulated in your world, and your players will most commonly be fighting against opponents who are using fists and saps, and the worst penalty for losing a regular fight is getting knocked out, breaking a few bones and getting your purse stolen. Then the more powerful bosses or the obviously dangerous enemies (such as the flaming half-demon spider dragon) deal lethal damage.

I have been wondering how to handle lethal weapons for this very reason, I have not really reached a suitable solution, except that town guards will probably not care for people walking around with weapons in their hands, particularly lethal ones.
elanthis said:
Gemstone let an account own a family name, so you (and only you) could create new characters that were related to your other characters. A dead character was replaced by a cousin or whatever, that retained many of the same in-game social statistics, and could inherit some small amount of property from a deceased character.

I have been toying with a similar concept, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with it. It leads to some design issues that I have not decided whether I approve of or not. Namely, it increases the likelihood of people making "revenge" characters to avenge their most recently killed character. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Giving it an RP justification is better than it happening for no reason, but I'm uncertain. It could also lead to family feuds, which could potentially be a great source of intrigue and whatnot, but it could also be fairly lame. I also wonder about allowing players to join one another's families and whatnot. Could be interesting, could be lame.
elanthis said:
Instant death rooms are stupid. Accidentally wandering into a dangerous area and being insta-gibbed is stupid. Having a bad run of luck in fair combat and getting crit hit six times and dying is stupid. If nothing else, grant life credits. Let players be resurrected just like in a nromal MUD, but put a cap on how often it can happen.

I agree with the stupid deaths problem. As far as "life credits" go, I'm toying with the idea of having some sort of credit system that will grant temporary bonuses, it might be feasible to allow these points to be spent to shift a player's "status" up one. Namely, dead to dying, dying to mortally wounded, mortally wounded to hurt, whatever. It strikes me as abusable, however.
elanthis said:
Make "losing" fun. It's hard to do… but it's doable. There are games where dying is just frustrating, and there are games where dying is hilarious. There are games with long-running characters where a death experience is talked about for years. […] If I were to guess at what differentiates the two, it's that games where death is fun don't feel repetitive when you die a lot. […] And you just end up playing the level over. But it's differnet when you play it over. Dying in a regular shooter or platformer means you just redo the exact same level over again, so it's boring. In most MUDs, you have to grind repetively to get anywhere. When you grind to get to level 20, it's boring as hell, but at least you get a feeling of accomplishment. When you have to grind the same freaking area to get _back_ to level 20, it's just obnoxious.

I agree with these things. My view on "grinding" is fairly simple. If something isn't fun to do repeatedly, it shouldn't exist at all. I.e., it probably wasn't any fun the first time either, people just didn't complain because they only had to do it once. As for making dying fun, I'm not sure if dying can ever really be "fun", but I've been coming up with ways to make it more interesting. Normally you get hit, you die, you're dead, not terribly interesting. I've been considering having a "DYING" status where you can still talk, but none of your communication commands work particularly well as you gasp for breath, etc. Much more interesting from a roleplay perspective, especially if you have last-minute wisdom to impart. I've also been thinking about generating random "dream" quests for people who get knocked out, because sitting there staring at "You see nothing but stars…" messages over and over is boring.
quixadhal said:
I'll just point to EVE-Online as a way to get all the good effects of perma-death, without actually having perma-death. :)

That's sort of the opposite of what I want. I want characters to die, if anything, I'd like to mitigate some of the brutal losses that occur with normal permadeath. I've played a mud that had limited reincarnation, where all characters eventually die, and it was always a bit of a rush reading over the list of the recently dead. I'd be sad at the loss of my friends, happy at the loss of my enemies, and so on. (it was enforced RP, btw, so those particular friends/enemies really were gone)
quixadhal said:
You can also control PvP via in-game mechanics, rather than a toggle. IE: You have NPC guards that punish the attackers in high security areas, and you let the players hash it out elsewhere, as you like.

This is actually what I intend to do. And one of the ways I would use to "discourage" killing. Since it wouldn't really be necessary to kill to achieve normal goals (you can rob people, beat them up, possibly break their legs, whatever), killing isn't necessarily necessary, and I'd have mob/player/flag enforced "laws". Breaking these "laws", especially if careful, wouldn't necessarily get the person wanted for them, but the chance is there, and murdering someone would have a disproportionately large punishment compared to the rest (namely, execution), the others would probably have fines or negligible jail-time, provided there's a way to make jail-time vaguely interesting in a mud.
KaVir said:
That's pretty much the same approach I used in Last City, except the percentage wasn't a flat figure - IIRC you kept 100% of your first 100 exp, 90% of your next 100, 80% of your next, etc, down to a minimum of 10%. It used total accumulated exp over all characters, so each time you created a new character you would always be at least as strong as when you last created (and in many cases you'd have higher exp, and could unlock new creation options).

Interesting. I think I like that system, except that I want people to be able to lose net XP if they keep dying over and over. The XP carryover system should reward good and interesting characters, not characters with a lifespan of 4 days. Nevertheless, the diminishing XP allows newbies to grow more accustomed to the system before they feel the brunt of the loss. My only question would be, how do you track who has what? Does each new "account" start with 100% retention? Or is the percentage regulated by people wanting to preserve what XP they already have? I.e., if it could fall below, they'd forego it and make new characters.
shasarak said:
IMO, permadeath makes griefing infinitely worse. On a MUD with relatively mild death penalties, if an experienced, skilled player decides to harass a less experienced one, the worst that can happen is that the less experienced player will suffer a mild penalty. On a permadeath MUD you are giving bullies the power to inflict full-scale character deletion on anyone they choose to pick on. Effectively you're giving griefers immortal-level powers.

I may be naive, but I don't really believe in "griefers". As far as Bartle types go, I'm a Killer, and I have a lot of friends who are Killers. We've all done "griefer" things from time to time, but I don't think any of us enjoyed them. Mostly it was done as an outlet for people pissing us off, or, more commonly, from sheer boredom. There's nothing worse for a game than a bored Killer. I don't think I've ever met another Killer who liked making people miserable for its own sake. Mostly I just like changing my environment, and if the only way I can find to do that is by making other people miserable, sooner or later that's the option I'm going to pick, be it by killing/looting people, poisoning birthday cakes, killing people's pets, trying to lure them into DTs, trying to break player-owned bots, starting shit on channels to make life difficult for the administration, whatever. My personal view is that muds that have problems with "griefers" should try to find other things for "griefers" to do. For example, at one point I decided to stop killing leveling newbies, because I hate leveling and I figured leveling was bad enough without me making it worse. What did I do then? I started hunting newbies down and casting helpful spells on them. It was just as interesting to me as killing them, plus it didn't make them quit.
KaVir said:
But with permadeath, you'd be able to permanently eliminate potential rivals. This actually provides you with an incentive to actively hunt down and kill other players while they're small, before they can become a threat to your powerbase. Allowing players to rise to your level is actually a strategic mistake (this was also one of my major complaints when I wrote my critique of Travian, the fact that not wiping out defenceless newbies - and thus ruining their gaming experience - would often cause you problems in the long term).

Hrm. Is killing them necessarily less strategically viable than "befriending" them, though? And is that an issue with permadeath in general, or with "Travian" (I have no idea what that is) in particular?
Scandum said:
I've seen quite a few people who quit after being killed over the years, even when losing nothing substantial, and consciously choosing to engage in PK.

I think part of the problem might be psychological, if a person feels they didn't stand a chance in a pvp fight it becomes a form of rape, and many people won't put up with that. One solution is to increase exp gains and make fights last longer, allowing players to flee in pvp situations.

People can quit for all sorts of reasons. The (second to) last(?) time I quit, I actually lost a very valuable item, but I didn't care about the item in the least. What happened was I died where I basically had no alternative to death. I was not particularly out-classed, I wasn't playing foolishly, I didn't make any mistakes, I got killed by a skill that very occasionally lags the person for a fairly inconsequential amount of time, and I got one-rounded. When I realized that my choices had no influence on the outcome, I thought about all my other deaths, and I noticed the trend. Namely, that luck was more important in the game than skill or strategy. I subsequently auto-deleted all of my pk chars.

I'm sure other people could have similar reasons for quitting, or a myriad of other possibilities that I'd never even consider.
Scandum said:
One reason permadeath muds work might be that the developers actively try to make death a rare event.

I think this point is important. Another thing I'd like to add is that I have very little respect for developers who don't play their own game. How else would they be able to find out what features are infuriating?

So much for not making a novel-length post. I could have broken this up into 30 separate posts, but that seems pretty useless, so I guess the size of this one is unavoidable.
05 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
Tonitrus said:
Mostly it was done as an outlet for people pissing us off, or, more commonly, from sheer boredom. There's nothing worse for a game than a bored Killer. I don't think I've ever met another Killer who liked making people miserable for its own sake. Mostly I just like changing my environment, and if the only way I can find to do that is by making other people miserable, sooner or later that's the option I'm going to pick, be it by killing/looting people, poisoning birthday cakes, killing people's pets, trying to lure them into DTs, trying to break player-owned bots, starting shit on channels to make life difficult for the administration, whatever.

You've done a pretty good job describing the kind of player many people wouldn't want within ten miles of their game. You even say that there's "nothing worse for a game" than the behavior you describe.

I mean, seriously: I didn't make him miserable because I like making people miserable, but I'm bored and making them miserable makes me less bored, so that makes it ok…? Everything is justified if the end of being less bored is accomplished, huh?

You see, this is relevant: attitudes like this – where a single bored asshole can destroy another player's game experience and accomplishments – are one of the biggest problems with permadeath. Sure, sure, you can do all this stuff about insurance, clones, family members, etc., but then you're not really doing permadeath anymore.
05 Nov, 2009, Tonitrus wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
You've done a pretty good job describing the kind of player many people wouldn't want within ten miles of their game. You even say that there's "nothing worse for a game" than the behavior you describe.

I mean, seriously: I didn't make him miserable because I like making people miserable, but I'm bored and making them miserable makes me less bored, so that makes it ok…? Everything is justified if the end of being less bored is accomplished, huh?

Who said anything about justification? I'm talking about cause and effect.

David Haley said:
You see, this is relevant: attitudes like this – where a single bored asshole can destroy another player's game experience and accomplishments – are one of the biggest problems with permadeath. Sure, sure, you can do all this stuff about insurance, clones, family members, etc., but then you're not really doing permadeath anymore.

This is the problem with everything. A single bored asshole can destroy anything, game-wise or real-world. You can't make people not be assholes, but you can look for ways to keep them from being bored. My point is that I've not encountered players who do these things because they like doing them, those sorts of players would be essentially impossible to do anything with besides ban.

Nor is my desire to have XP carryover for the purposes of mitigating such behavior. I believe such behavior, when players have the ability to fight it on their own, will be pretty brutally stamped out. I believe in giving players the ability to handle such things, rather than restrict such power to administration.
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