AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Gauging interest: FORCED PERMA DEATH!!!!!!

Last edited by Kjetta on Mon, Dec 14 2009, 12:43 PM, edited 4 times in total.

Dear Amia Players,

I have suggested, and the DM Team is now discussing, introducing forced perma death to Amia, and this is a post to gauge your interest. From an ice-cold logical deduction of why this suggestion suck to an emotionally charged primal scream from the pit of your soul, feel free; any response is valid. Don't hold it in.

Some background: We believe we are now losing more players to hardcore servers than social/arena servers. So far, this is just a hunch, if anyone can provide information regarding this, we would greatly appreciate it. Send a PM.
Anyways, our working thesis is: NWN-players are growing up, and while the arcade aspects of the game is starting to fade, NWN still stands the test of time as an excellent facilitator for RP. This creates an environment where hardcore/mature RP settings are more likely to survive and thrive than easy-going disney-fied "RP lite" servers. Amia is currently struggeling with an (undeserved?) image as something of the latter.

This suggestion however is not primarily driven by a want to look good externally. I believe it would bring about a heapful of positive (and, by all means, some negative) effects to the Amia community internally.

The hope is that forced permadeath would remedy these percieved problems:

Extreme attachment to PCs: I will be extremely blunt here. I (and a few other DMs) see a huge problem in the Amia community when it comes to this. Regularly, we see some players using Amia RP as a substitute for RL social life. Some (well, quite many actually) players abuse Amia as a glorified MSN, a "safe haven" in cyberspace where they dare to speak to members of the opposite sex and be social winners in a way that do not yet master in RL, etc.
When players fail in this regard, and the PC becomes an extension of their self, DMs and other players feel they are interupting people's social life and hurting their feelings when we spring events and encounters on said type of PCs. All in alll, there's just a bunch of drama, akwardness and lack of excitement that stems from this approach to Amia.

I believe it's about control. If there's one thing Amia provides as a server, it's control. Few other RP servers allow the player to retain this much control over their PCs, and this creates a problem because we attract players that desperately seek control, lacking it in RL. These players, while often nice people, are troublesome because they are not here to experience adrenaline-pumped stories, but social acomlishment over acomplishments in the sense of storytelling or adventure set in the Forgotten Realsms.

I could go on, all in all, I believe there's countless of problems stemming from the blurry lines betweens player and PC that some of you uphold.

Hopefully, the threat of actual death, which is a drastic shift in the amount of control given to players, will either scare these kind of players away or force them into better ways.

"The grind": Everybody knows that the only that that stands in the way between you and level 30 is time. There is no acomplishment attached to levels. This is extremely boring. Monster's are not scary. Introducing a chance of forced perma death would make zombies scary again. How rad!

Lack of acomplishment in general: When you hear that some PC did something brave, are you impressed? Wyjyn's sun-elf going alone to the gates of Ultrinnan? What did he risk? It's really hard to be badass when your bike has safety-wheels. How much cooler would it be to be a successful assassin/criminal if you could actually get executed by the Cordor Guards? How much more dreadful to run into a group of drow?

Lack of meaning: With perma death, factions can wage wars and actually hurt and even obliberate their enemies without DM supervision. RP, without DM supervision, would start to matter in a whole new way. With great risk, comes great fun.

Suspense: This is the same point as the first, only with emphasis on lack of control as a storytelling device rather as social engineering. "Suspense - is a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience's perceptions in a dramatic work. (...) An audience experience suspense when they expect something bad to happen and have (or believe they have) a superior perspective on events in the drama's hierarchy of knowledge, yet they are powerless to intervene to prevent it from happening."

Drawbacks: (feel free to point out more)

Cycle of PCs: PCs would become short-lived. You wouldn't have the kind of 4 year old, super-developed characters we have now.

More PvP angst: Griefing and legel PvP becomes something entirely new as strangers you've just met on the net will have the power to permanently send your PC to the fugue with all his money and items.

Way too late, server is balanced towards non-hardcore: "Omg, what are you thinking? Amia's been developed steadily for 5 years around the concept of control/creative freedom. What you are suggesting is a whole other server. Go to a hardcore server if you hate Amia this much!"

Clearly, I think it's worth it. What do you think?

PS! Now, keep in mind, forced perma death can be introduced in many ways. From a x% chance of perma death on death to a set of 10 "lives" per PC (option of bying xtra lives with DCs?) etc. First, let's just discuss the mere notion of letting go of the control of your PC and dive head-first into forced perma death land.

Are we talking about every encounter as a possibility for perma death? Be it PvP or RP, be it a grieving player or a DM event?

I am Pro perma death, provided its substaintial and not just a 1 on a dev crit or a timestop spamming mage. I would love to every encounter give the possibility of death that is not merely get up and walk away. Be it months in a plane of death waiting to see if others can bring you back, or a risk that went wrong but the death went towards something more, like showing the playerbase that thinking you can take on the world does have consequences.

I would love to see this, do I believe the amia playerbase is ready for this? No.

I have a number of friends who are Amians, who have moved part time to more hardcore servers, or servers who are small enough that they can cater personally to their character.

Hope that helps evidence wise.

I can also Testify to the extreme attachment to a character, as I have been a person who has been this person. I have used Amia as a glorified MSN, and have also used it to take out some frustrations of real life. Even letting an IC relationship get to me OOC. Blurring the lines as well.

All your suggestions make sense, as does perma-death. It also let's people have a new start to a character, a fresh start, some people get to attached. Perma-death is needed to make a fantasy world feel fantastic, otherwise it's just a world full of pretty objects and strong people who never die, kinda like an anime.

The Drawbacks would depend entirely on how it's implemented. If you make it possible to perm-death via PVP without permission for example, then I'm completely against this, as people are ass monkies, and will abuse that rule, possibly causing much frustration and more anger then already exists. However, perma-death via DM events are a very good idea, or perma-death via epic bosses, would also be interesting.

Another Drawback is that people don't want to lose the character they put SO much work into, and thus will simply turtle in Cordor or another "Safe' zone, rather then adventure. This was quite usual during a number of events in the past involving sudden attacks and possibly making a character inactive for a time. Was rather boring.

I like the idea of Perma-death being introduced though, as long as it's introduced in the right way.

Just an idea that popped into my head, RP that would warrant a PERMA death. Taking baby steps may make a change, if one was to be implimented more agreeable.

RP assassinations- A player becomes infamous, by either heroics or villany. The character soon finds a price on there head, with the possibiliy of assassinations across server.

Now, a way to resolve this is, failed assassination attempt, assassin accepts perma death.
Successfull assassination, target dies character collects the gold.
Target slowly follows a path to find out who set the price, killing said person and nullifying the hit.

A risk for all parties involved, which -should- enhance the atmosphere of the server. Do our heroes or villain really want to be famous with this potential risk? Do we want to be placing hits left right and centre if our own characters can end up dead because of it, more importantly will we make our hits publically known? Or will the server slowly adapt netowrks of information for good and bad.

Ad lastly, our assassins now with a new role that is affective now have a market in which to deal in. They can pick and choose the hits, be it a challange or not but all the while that nagging ris it could be there last.

Faction infiltration: Found out to be a spy? Been handing ovr information and got caght out. Perma death.

Faction leaders- Running a faction has a new risk, you may be able to slowly weed out the spies, but you also have a chance of being killed before you find them all.

Faction wars- seeking to burn down a faction HQ? Now there is a risk, fall in battle and you will not rise again.

DM events- think your going to be the big hero, run ahead and die? Well not this time, the gloves are off and not thinking will get you killed. Permanently.

Public executions by gaurds of cities for breaking laws one too many times.

Of course,I'd also say every player gets one get out of jail free card, Where if enough characters wish to see someone come back, They can go on an epic adventure with great risks to see there friend, or master brought back from the dead.

I'm hesitant to write this, because it does touch on a nerve and reveals me as a total sad loser, but I guess my opinion is probably the extreme of the "emotional attachment" spectrum, so its worth voicing.

I've played basically one character since June 05.

You asked for a gut reaction:

No, no, no and hell no.

I think there are plenty of consequences you can have short of forced permadeath. I recently took a year away from Amia purely because I screwed up with that character. I would not be back if it were not to play her.

Have I blurred the lines between reality and fiction? HELL YES!
I married my character's "chosen male", dragged him half way across the globe to live with me and am carrying his child!

Do I think that's a bad thing? HELL NO!
I don't want to lose this character any more than I do my engagement ring.

I come to Amia to play Veh'dra. Not for the DMs, not for the module, not even for the playerbase. Sorry to be so blunt, but it is Vehdra's relationship with Naref that I love far, far more than any of those things. She has played a pivotal part of MY REAL LIFE. You can see that as sad, or you can see it as romantic, I don't really care, but it is something very precious to me.

I can think of a dozen other ways to bring cause and effect into Amia, but oppose any which stand between me and the continued existence of the Veh'dra / Naref dynamic. I realise that sooner or later, we are not going to have Amia, but until then, it is the oak tree we carved our initials into, the swing on which we had our first kiss, the restaurant we visit on our anniversary. I am not ready to let it go.

Kjetta wrote:

Cycle of PCs: PCs would become short-lived. You wouldn't have the kind of 4 year old, super-developed characters we have now.

This is the reason I would vote no.

Think of a nice character idea? Roll a 1, Splat, next idea?

There are only so many interesting characters one person can come up with. I'd end up falling into the suspiciously similar replacement territory, making bland, uninteresting characters, or just give up.

Thats even without how the world would be affected by having everyone your character knows dying off. Pretty dull after x number of funerals.

I am utterly against almost anything that involves 'forced', is permanent, and hasn't been implemented yet.

I wouldn't mind a death system that's more severe. For instance: raising takes a full day and some ritual, and every time you die another day is added. That would make death quite a bit more involved.

Selvec Darkon wrote:

The Drawbacks would depend entirely on how it's implemented. If you make it possible to perm-death via PVP without permission for example, then I'm completely against this, as people are ass monkies, and will abuse that rule, possibly causing much frustration and more anger then already exists. However, perma-death via DM events are a very good idea, or perma-death via epic bosses, would also be interesting.

Agreed with the PvP and DM-quest aspect

Disagree on the epic boss aspect.
While the need for epic loot will drastically diminish if pvp can result in permadeath its not too fair to give old characters a boost in regards to loot. They can now go unharmed and fearless to the end (whats a respawn anyway) and can have years of advantage in looting. so personally i'ld not like that too much depending on implementation (see lower)

My ideas:
permadeath: I tossed enough characters away in my total run on amia, so I'm not too attached to them except a few. So I dont really mind permadeath as long as it is implemented fairly, keeping old and new characters in mind.

Now you can enforce it very strict, but that is completely against the amian tradition (where everything can if it is fun for all, sort of) and I think will lose you a lot of players. Or you can do it with plenty ways out (sort of like the amian easygoing, nice atmosphere) and then it will not alter too much either. So it's going to be difficult defining that middle ground.

BUT even if you find that middleground, I dont know if it will help too much. Imo it would help more if on amia not everybody and his grandmother would be able to do every single thing they wanted all on their own. Every single type of crafting, every single type of buffs, every quest,...

On amia, with minimal investment you can litteraly reach everything. 1open lock/disable trap and gear takes care of nearly all locks and traps on the module.
1 spellcraft and gear and you can craft whatever you want. for weapons and armor you dont even need to invest anything except some time and gold.

This enabled the playerbase to build more and more from a powerbuilding perspective (whatever your final build is, all you need to "cripple" it in is about 5-10 skillpoints total in skills you'ld skip otherwise for some extra ranks in heal or appraise or such). And imo THAT is what drives the people that go to hardcore servers away.

The fact that on amia you can literally get by with zero RP and reach every end dungeon and end place.

Permadeath may make that a tad more difficult (hunting is always easier in group) but still not impossible, and will (if my feelings are correct) not alter too much to amia. edit: (finishing this sentence) not alter in a good way keeping the playerbase happy*

drop a player 5 levels with each pvp kill..that should get people to be more cautius

Kraniumbrud wrote:

drop a player 5 levels with each pvp kill..that should get people to be more cautius

To be honest, I'd rather see something along those lines than permadeath.

But I haven't made a stance in this matter yet. I'll continue to read the input in this thread, and then create my own opinion.

I say this as a DM who has seen what even upstanding RPers can do to people that they dislike IC or OOC;

Permadeath of someone's character should not come under the domain of any other player in any means. PvP Kills taking levels? No. PvP Kills taking gold? No. PvP Kills giving any form of severe consequence? No.

Too easily abused. Too easily grieved. And will make 100% more drama in regards to PvP disputes than we already have. I'm far more concerned with, say, running plots and events.

That said, this is my ideal;

DM Events - Permadeath a possibility. Up the rewards to being involved in these events.
PvM - No Permadeath. Much harsher death penalties (even when Raised)
PvP - No Permadeath. No harsher consequences.

Last edited by Lesquille on Mon, Dec 14 2009, 13:33 PM, edited 1 time in total.

If permadeath is only possible in DM events, nobody will go to DM events.

Edit: BTW, is this thread a joke? It's not April Fools. But I'm dubious as to whether this is actually being discussed seriously.

Hence the 'Increased Rewards' clause.

If amia adds forced permadeath, I'll leave. I'm sure I'm not alone.

I'm certain your companions can speak for themselves.

WonWon wrote:

That said, this is my ideal;

DM Events - Permadeath a possibility. Up the rewards to being involved in these events.
PvM - No Permadeath. Much harsher death penalties (even when Raised)
PvP - No Permadeath. No harsher consequences.

*Nod nod*

Ill agree, I am rather attached to my character, have been since I actually started RPing with him. And I would be rather upset if permadeath were implemented, becuase, unfair or not, a weak build that guards the war-torn Amia Forest will be among the first to die.

Not saying that this will ruin my life, but Ill drop Amia that day. There just wont be any point in playing on the server after that.

Just be prepared to lose the majority of your 65 people playerbase at most times when you involve permadeath. I doubt many will want to keep losing their characters.

Oh, and the negative level idea isnt bad. You dont need levels to RP and enjoy your character, but this also means the crazy faction killing randomly has to stop. No offense Mago, but the PvP happy banites will run most characters that minorly oppose them to lvl 1

Quote:

I say this as a DM who has seen what even upstanding RPers can do to people that they dislike IC or OOC;

Permadeath of someone's character should not come under the domain of any other player in any means. PvP Kills taking levels? No. PvP Kills taking gold? No. PvP Kills giving any form of severe consequence? No.

Too easily abused. Too easily grieved. And will make 100% more drama in regards to PvP disputes than we already have. I'm far more concerned with, say, running plots and events.

That said, this is my ideal;

DM Events - Permadeath a possibility. Up the rewards to being involved in these events.
PvM - No Permadeath. Much harsher death penalties (even when Raised)
PvP - No Permadeath. No harsher consequences.

I normally tend to stay away from these kind of posts but this one is right on the money... I can't say how many times I have been killed by another player on this server just because they claim to be "evil" or a "bandit". One player should never be able to tell another player that their character is now perma-dead. This kind of ruling will only force players to make powerbuilds.

Now, as far as DM enforced perma-death.. that I would fine with. If a players RP leads them to a point where it is called for of course. I could also see this for two waring guilds as long as the "war event" was posted as a "perma-death possible event" with a DM to oversee it if possible.

Ron: that doesn't change anything. Our aim should be a situation in which players run the RP and DM events are just the icing on the cake that doesn't stand out, a natural addition to the big picture.

As long as players have nothing to fear from eachother, we cannot achieve that. Our role-play will remain inferior. Permadeath might be the cure, or there might be other means. But something must be done to make players afraid.

You'll find that Mago is in agreement with 'No Harsher Penalties for PvP'.

That said, let's keep personal jibes out of this, yes?

We're not PvP happy. Our opponents have tended to be though... for the last 4 years.

We're on our toes, and it's you guys who caused that, not us.

And no, we don't OOCly grief players like that.

We play evil bastards IC, but that doesn't represent us OOCly.

Kraniumbrud wrote:

drop a player 5 levels with each pvp kill..that should get people to be more cautius

This.
And keep old PvP rules.

IronAngel wrote:

Ron: that doesn't change anything. Our aim should be a situation in which players run the RP and DM events are just the icing on the cake that doesn't stand out, a natural addition to the big picture.

As long as players have nothing to fear from eachother, we cannot achieve that. Our role-play will remain inferior. Permadeath might be the cure, or there might be other means. But something must be done to make players afraid.

I disagree, purely because I see irresponsibility becoming a very large factor.

In PvM, I could see Permadeath occuring. I wouldn't think it's the best idea, but it's viable.

For PvP - There's far too many ways it could be abused, even in regards to the rules, even after they were fully tweaked to handle it. Do we say only certain players can enforce permadeath on others and become favouritist? Or do we say that you can jeopardize someone else's play experience by taking away their levels, gold, XP, or time for killing them for X reason (which may not even be a good reason).

I'm certain the various Drow players wouldn't be too impressed if the Sheverashan's just started constantly picking them off and dropping their levels (all in well regards to the PvP rules, mind), or taking their gold/stuff, or even taking away their characters.

Also: I think that the attitude of "I'm attached to my character, and I'll leave he gets killed" is exactly what's wrong with Amia. Ideally, players would drop that attitude, but the second best consequence is that they do, in fact, leave. I would like to think, and the current state of NWN suggests, that such an outcome would ultimately attract more players to Amia, and we would win in both quality and quantity. Whether this would be the case, or if we'd just drive people away without attracting others, is quite uncertain though.

Permadeath has a high chance of OOC drama, and may further encourage players to create the 'best build possible', simply in order to survive...

However, on the flip-side, it would nigh-on destroy skill dumping on level 30.

Increasing death penalties might work. Standard penalties for Raise Dead, for instance, with even worse for respawns...

But still... that's pretty brutal in a persistent world, especially when PvP is factored in. DnD was never balanced with PvP in mind, neither was NWN. I foresee drama.

In short: Hell no. I don't mind perma'ing in PCs, but if it's forced I'm 100% against it.

Remember - rolling a one kills you.

Mathias of Constantinople wrote:

If amia adds forced permadeath, I'll leave. I'm sure I'm not alone.

WonWon wrote:

I'm certain your companions can speak for themselves.

He likely speaks for me too ... I'd be fine with the PnP style losing a level after being killed, but not permadeath. I choose when my characters die for good, and I'm happy with that. To be randomly killed in PvP, and suddenly not be able to play a developed character? Awful. I come here for fun, if I wanted forced permadeath I'd play Real Life.

Mr Mago wrote:

We're not PvP happy. Our opponents have tended to be though... for the last 4 years.

We're on our toes, and it's you guys who caused that, not us.

And no, we don't OOCly grief players like that.

We play evil bastards IC, but that doesn't represent us OOCly.

I do apologize then. What I say is just from the standpoint of my Forest pc, which seems to be on the receiving end many times when just stopping trouble in the forest.

I do agree with Iron on the "I'm attached to my character, and I'll leave if he gets killed" 'perspective' being a very large problem in the community.

This is a living, breathing, thriving world (or so we try to maintain) where people ideally -can- and -do- die on occasion, where stories do come to conclusions or start anew, and there is some amount of progression in the world.

I just disagree with putting it in player hands. Too easy to exploit, IMHO.

I'm coming at this from the specific point of view as a faction leader, and will probably keep in that focus...

The potential forced loss of characters will add a whole new level of headache for those that run factions, and those that do know it can be a headache at times already.

This would especially effect smaller, niche factions (which, admittedly, I am in) that have a slower time in recruiting members. So, in this respect, I am not sure how I feel about forced-perma death. Especially in regards to random things, rolled 1's and so forth. Plus, lets not kid ourselves, we play an internet computer game, the potential for character loss stemming from lag and lock-ups is entirely probable. This coupled with the amount of work that goes into a faction, that could then be undone by bad luck... well, I am not entirely keen on that possibility, from where I am sitting. Gut reaction? Probably.

However, in regards to faction conflict. An encouraging of permadeath among combatants by the DMs may be a more moderate, middle-ground approach. That said, there are a few circumstances that I would entertain permadeath for. Epic DM event? Yes. An epic battle, that matters in the scope of things, with a dire foe of the faction? Yes. Some random PvP skirmish in the (remains) of the forest? Ah, no.

Our of everything so far, I like Disco's idea of longer and longer times to resurrect.

Its much like my own idea of having a limited amount of lives, which took time to recharge. Use up all your lives, and you have to wait until you get some more. Say you have 1 life added to your pot every week, with a maximum of 9 lives in total.

If you don't pay attention and lose all your 9 lives, then every death will take you a week to recover from.

If you are super careful, but run into some hectic trouble which is unusual for you, it wont have much effect, so long as you don't make a habit of it.

PvP 5 times a day? You're going to have a lot of down time.
PvP once a month? No real effect.
DM events could deduct more than the base 1 death, if you wished.
Leaders of factions could either have less lives, or regenerate them more slowly.

Its like Permadeath Lite.

One reason as to people becoming so attached to their characters, is because many of the in game features and achievements literally take years to achieve.

And this is because of a huge playerbase, with far too few DMs to run it.

If everyone was given their heroic DM quests daily, instead of yearly, then one specific character with a huge investment would become less frequent.

This is also represented by the epic loot system, for example. And the gathering of gold.

Just making a name for yourself in a community like this takes forever.

Those characters who are famous/infamous today, have been working to achieve that for 3+ years.

Look at the creation dates of Yossarin, Earylduil, Frey, Darthion, Sharina, Jud'Vardas etc.

If you truly want to make permadeath a viable addition to the server, you'll also have to customize how and within what timeframe characters are rewarded within the module... through all aspects.

Didi wrote:

Our of everything so far, I like Disco's idea of longer and longer times to resurrect.

Its much like my own idea of having a limited amount of lives, which took time to recharge. Use up all your lives, and you have to wait until you get some more. Say you have 1 life added to your pot every week, with a maximum of 9 lives in total.

If you don't pay attention and lose all your 9 lives, then every death will take you a week to recover from.

If you are super careful, but run into some hectic trouble which is unusual for you, it wont have much effect, so long as you don't make a habit of it.

PvP 5 times a day? You're going to have a lot of down time.
PvP once a month? No real effect.
DM events could deduct more than the base 1 death, if you wished.
Leaders of factions could either have less lives, or regenerate them more slowly.

Its like Permadeath Lite.

So we should all go into hiding?

What about those who can't help that they're indirectly forced into PvP 5 times a day?

Why should they be punished more so than those who take a less confrontational stance?

Permadeath shouldn't result in everyone avoiding conflict or potentially hostile interaction with other PCs.

It should, if it ever were properly implemented, offer an emotional grasp of fear and consequences, while still encouraging an RP progression that includes both conflict and hostilities.

Thats probably the best argument ive heard so far.

If you cant make a character somewhat meaningful on the server, then there isnt much to RP with. Its just one character saying "hey, im out to go hunt." They die, and another character goes to take their place.

If you are more of a target, have more enemies, yes, the risk should be higher. If you've been killed 8 times, in the past few weeks, maybe it IS time to take a lower profile.

Actions -> consequences.

If you want to raise the risk, then raise the rewards as well.

And I know for sure, that the risk my character would be taking will exceed anyone else on this entire server.

And I want the reward to represent it if so.

Blunt.

You already have the reward, Mr Mago. You have the most feared character on the server.

I thought that was my consequence, not my reward >.<

I guess I'd also feel pretty guilty if I somehow, luckily, managed to permakill a character that has been around for a long time with a lucky set of rolls.

Sure, these things happen, and maybe should, but I can't imagine that the player of a character into whom a lot of effort has been put into would be most pleased to have been offed in what would essentially be a pointless random encounter (And we all know, in DnD, all random encounters are pointless! http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0145.html ).

Being the biggest, baddest villain around? That's one hell of a reward! You can have all the epic loot in the world, but that kind of reputation is something money cannot buy.

And the flip side is, that EVERYONE is after you, and you have to be the biggest, baddest villain around to deal with it! I am sure that Darthion would find ways of making his 9 lives last.

The people with lives to spare will not be the ones who throw themselves into any battle with abandon. The ones who take their chance against him will probably be the kind who PvP a fair bit themselves and have just as much to lose.

I'm going to suggest that docking levels/xp on death is a very good way of sorting out PvP.

Asshats that PK people in a griefy manner will soon find all their characters at level 3 as the playerbase wises up to them. Even the best Sorc powerbuild isn't going to win against 20 - 30 PC's constantly hunting them. It will force people to Hunt in bigger groups which promotes RP.

Other than that I'm taking a seat with Mago on the Fence until this has been hammered out further.

Didi wrote:

Our of everything so far, I like Disco's idea of longer and longer times to resurrect.

Its much like my own idea of having a limited amount of lives, which took time to recharge. Use up all your lives, and you have to wait until you get some more. Say you have 1 life added to your pot every week, with a maximum of 9 lives in total.

If you don't pay attention and lose all your 9 lives, then every death will take you a week to recover from.

If you are super careful, but run into some hectic trouble which is unusual for you, it wont have much effect, so long as you don't make a habit of it.

PvP 5 times a day? You're going to have a lot of down time.
PvP once a month? No real effect.
DM events could deduct more than the base 1 death, if you wished.
Leaders of factions could either have less lives, or regenerate them more slowly.

Its like Permadeath Lite.

This!

And i must add - Just ...Imagine the feeling, when you're desperately trying to stay alive, When you're using every fiber of your body Rping to 'get out of the situation' , instead of just

HOSTILE (Send tell: Warning, pvp incoming) And start bashing....

I would TOTALY get an adrenaline rush if i knew there was something i could loose...

IMO, adding permadeath in certain events such as DM events or ones that involve characters such as ones from opposite factions might make Amia a little more interesting.
As it stands, one often fails to get infamy/fame with the current playerbase. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the fact that it's caused by a group of people who have been around for years is. Adding permadeath would prevent this from happening and introduce a much more common flow of individuals that is common in the tabletop game - well, it is when I DM it on the weekends at my home with some friends.
At this point in time we have characters who come and go without ever meeting their end unless their creator decides to permakill them. Sue, they'll get killed several times by monsters or other players, but will always return to gloat and continue their lives like normal. Adding "forced" permakill would add a feel of the game being alive in a sense that it fails to have now. Aspiring adventurers would die, as would happen in most cases when a commoner went on to try and get rich by killing monsters, unlike what he have now when everyone is revived instantly when killed by means other than old age or cardiac arrest. It would add a sense of caution that many players fail to have now and also add a sense of peril as people were risking the lives of their characters. This would lead to the remaking of characters and the recycling of personalities, however.

I can see some potential for some excellent roleplay, but I can also seen much griefing and the problem of many people leaving over the change. As such, I would agree to forced permakills in the right situations. And in occasions other than those then the players could choose to agree and disagree if they were closely involved in the combat. If that didn't work out for whatever reason then one could call a DM if need be.

Didi wrote:

Being the biggest, baddest villain around? That's one hell of a reward... and RISK!

Fixed that

Let's say that permadeath was in effect when I created Darth.

The rewards, given the amount of risk he would be accumulating during the process of reaping rewards, would be that the 600+ characters he killed to get to the top would be perma dead... removing the accumulated risk they would represent.

That's not how it is though.

Those 600 characters are still alive. And they're pissed.

As it stands right now, I'm already at the top of accumulated risk, and there's little reward for me to reap looking at the chances of the entire island likely pulling together to try and kill him. Permanently.

The problem with Permadeath in only some situations is consistency.

If I can Raise a dead friend one day, but then I can't the next, for OOC reasons, suspension of disbelief goes out the window.

In my opinion, either proper permadeath, or no permadeath, and considering the opportunity for drama it may create, although it would possibly improve RP (or increase the NEED for powerbuilding over RP), I'm having to be, admittedly reluctantly, against it.

However...

There are other options to improve RP, such as removing XP from grinding, only giving it for true achievements.

Harsher penalties for death, perhaps. And I mean maybe even hardcore ones.

Never Permadeath. Never.

Whatever you touch with the permadeath stick shall wither and die. It shall draw up like a raisin in the sun and be starved of the genuine roleplay you seek from the populace. So speaks the Oracle.

If it's only in DM events, it's bloody hard to explain how Sneakers O'Toul has been killed by beast, man, and wonder for decades IC and always eventually comes back, but since it was a DM event and he rolled a 1 on reflex, he was killed by a falling tree. Forever. People will OoCly avoid getting involved in plots with characters they've become attached to. And when that happens, you get even less RP than you had before. "Yeah, I could go RP with this DM over here, but that might be it... I'd rather RP with my friends and have fun that worry OoCly and not have fun." Right or wrong, that shall be thought by some.

If you impliment it in PvP, yes people will be afraid. But they'll be afraid OoCly, not ICly. The fear which you want to have comes from them RPing a character correctly, not from knowing this is your "last life", or that if you die by some reason or another, that's it. Game Over. And just like an arcade game, that's what it will become to people. Not roleplay, but how long can I go without dying?

If it's implimented in PvM, even by a slight percentage, people will OoCly not ever go places that do not already know they can't win. This, if anything, is perhaps the most damning thing about permadeath. It becomes much, much too enticing, much too reasonable to metagame places you've already been. Chiefly because of that OoC fear it would instil.

Besides. You're telling me if I sit down and plan out a character for I think what's been a little over 6 months writing the backstory for one of my characters, I should be willing accept that once I actually play her and she gets killed by a double goblin spawn on the first day that that might be it? Even a slight chance of random permadeath, you shall see a decline in character depth, even the "good RPers", especially after they loose some of their favorite characters. Compare that to the case where some OoC hunter who builds and plays only to solo gets lucky and lives forever. It'd rather see the DM permadeath option before I see that, which is like saying I'd rather be drowned before I'm beheaded.

Good Roleplayers try to be objective in most cases, but you can't expect them not to wench when you whack their toes with the Permadeath-hammer, as planned or as random as one might make it.

If we're loosing players to hardcore servers, so be it. People who play Amia looking for hardcore, white-knuckles, over-realistic(IMO) roleplay can already find it elsewhere. And that's why some choose to go elsewhere. But I'll be damned to say the rest already play Amia for what it is. A focus on Roleplay, not screenplay. Not trying to portray our own world through some fantasy game.

As I've always said, and always will say: The entire purpose of having dangerous monsters in DnD, the whole purpose of having peril and threats and mindnumbing insane odds against the PC's, was made under the assumption that the "heroes", for better or for worse, would eventually get up, dust themselves off, and go on to another story.

If people want to play in a world where there's just as much peril, just as many monsters, just as many horrible ways to die, only "one life" and extreme hardcore realism, they'll pick their dice up, put them in their pocket and go outside.

Last edited by hendrack on Mon, Dec 14 2009, 14:13 PM, edited 2 times in total.

Go for permadeath. Amia needs a fresh breath of chars and a dynamic environment. Chars that get dragged on for years and players with the attitude "hurt my char, I am gone" make a very stale server setting.

I have the opinion every char should have a decent background story, a vibrant existance on the server and then a fitting end. Done that with two of my chars and it was a satisfying closure of a chapter. If you played your chars for 2 years or whatnot, what else do you want to accomplish with him/her? To get along a story and be part of it should be the reason to play, not to play an invincible pixel avatar of oneself.

I say a fixed number of PvM deaths before your char is dead. PvP is a touchy subject, but at least at DM events or RP conflicts between factions PvP should have a meaning. Amia's factions have danced on eggshells and in circles for years, with no sense of accomplishment, at least for me.

/barkbark

To Mago:

But isnt that somewhat realistic? He's kind of single handedly killed more players than the entire Horde plot. Probably killed more people than all the DM plots combined! He's a one man armageddon.

Whether or not permadeath was in effect, you -would- have the entire isles out to get you anyway, given your past history. You play the kind of arch evil entire PnP campaigns set out to stop. You are the Temple of Elemental Evil.

I am not suggesting that permadeath should be on the cards. But an increasing risk with each death would make even your character vulnerable. You are currently an unstoppable evil. You still would be, even with my suggestion, but it would force you to "lie low" every now and again when the heat got too much. It would let people win the occassional battle, whilst allowing the war to continue ad infinitum.

Didi wrote:

To Mago:

But isnt that somewhat realistic? He's kind of single handedly killed more players than the entire Horde plot. Probably killed more people than all the DM plots combined! He's a one man armageddon.

Whether or not permadeath was in effect, you -would- have the entire isles out to get you anyway, given your past history. You play the kind of arch evil entire PnP campaigns set out to stop. You are the Temple of Elemental Evil.

I am not suggesting that permadeath should be on the cards. But an increasing risk with each death would make even your character vulnerable. You are currently an unstoppable evil. You still would be, even with my suggestion, but it would force you to "lie low" every now and again when the heat got too much. It would let people win the occassional battle, whilst allowing the war to continue ad infinitum.

As he pointed out - a decent portion of that army out to get him would already be permanently dead. Instead, everyone he has killed in the past would be out to get him, and he wouldn't have the same second chance at life that they did. It only takes him to roll a one once for a many-year-old character to be gone forever.

Im against permadeath, Yurell.

I am sortof in the between on this issue, which is highly uncommon. I don't usually float in the 'gray area', but right now I am. It's a bit disconcerting.

I love the idea of consequences. I love the idea to permanently change the world we're in. I love the idea to affect another character dramatically with your own through RP events. Thusly, I love the idea of permanent death. However, I did it, it would be something akin to this:

Perma-death scripting fires not on death, but on raise attempts. A raise dead scroll purchased from a store has a 20% chance of failure. A Cleric/Druid casting Raise Dead has a 10% chance of failure. And a Cleric/Druid casting Resurrection has a 5% chance of failure. All those coincide, and perhaps if one is failed the others are allowed to be attempted (but not the same method twice).

Finally; if a person is 'permakilled' they are sent to the Fugue, where they await judgment. If they wish their character to survive, they cough up 3 DCs - a hefty price - and return to the world of the living. If not... they go away forever. Period.

I like this because it is both a system for permanent death as well as a system for 'more severe death penalties' at once. At the same time this method makes death a serious issue (I might be burning through my precious, hard-earned DCs just to stick around); and, as well, allows for people to 'disappear' forever, giving characters a dynamic feel which is necessary for a good story (that's right, not an Social Server with Action/RP involved - a true roleplaying, story telling server).

In this way, no death is 'forced' - simply suggested to be a possibility, as well as encouraging more RP, more use of that DC wand, etc.

Gauging interest: FORCED PERMA DEATH!!!!!!

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