AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Because the other topic is sidetracked and DMs probably don't read it anymore, I guess I should ask this here:

Is it alright to RP regular PvM death as K.O., severe incapacitation, wounded to the brink of death but not quite gone to Kelemvor where you'd need conscious divine intervention to return from? Am I breaking the rules if I don't RP every single Raise scroll as journey to the afterlife and back? This doesn't concern DM quests and PvP death, of course. Even PvM death is situational, sometimes a death is obviously a death whereas other times it could be something else.

Historical context: this has been fine before. Myself and Nekh, at the very least, have made such calls. It's been said to be fine in public forum discourse and has, until recently, been largely unchallenged.

Why is this important: Wanton death and resurrection makes meaningful death more difficult. More importantly, lorewise Raise Dead requires a valuable diamond and drains a level every time it's used. While this isn't the enforced reality on Amia, I'd still rather be consistent with it and voluntarily suffer greater consequences of the spell when a real story death occurs.

I don't want player debate here. I'm asking the DMs to discuss this collectively in private and give their definite call. Am I breaking rules or not?

This might be better sent as a PM, maybe.

... I want to know too! =0

Yes. I am asking for a public rules clarification to be announced (and possibly documented in R&L if there's need) to settle this question for good (or until it's publically changed, anyway). It's not really an issue concerning me, but rather something that might be nice for everyone to be on the same page about.

Well, if it's against the rules I've been breaking the rules for 5 years. And I have no intentions to stop, either.

Uprising!

No, but seriously. There's no rule on this. It's up to the player's discretion how they wish to RP it. I heartily recommend RPing PvM death as a KO, but I'm not gonna complain if someone wants to RP it as a full death. I'll just weep a little inside, if they die 10 times a hunting trip.

Same applies to my events. Unless mentioned specifically, the character doesn't die a PvM death, but is knocked out and out of the battle until his comrades slap him awake and patch him up. If he does die, he dies a horrible death and suffers for it.

Though, I guess I should say that if I alone got to decide all PvM death would be enforced as a KO and not death... save that PvM death for events and stuff, when it can be made dramatic and memorable.

Personally I think, as a player, that blowing off the use of a Raise Dead/Resurrection cheapens meaningful death more so than anything. It says to me, the player, that the character could not accept the entirety of the risk involved in Adventuring and had no business to be out in the field. Furthermore it undermines the mechanics in place.

I would even go so far as to say it also cheapens the RP of others that try to take death more seriously. Ex: Full party of level 18s make it into the beholders, on accident for the sake of argument, they all perish. They decide to wait instead of respawn and lucky for them a high level cleric swings in. The cleric lays down some stellar RP on raising them only to have them then decide that "oh we just passed out guys!"

But I see this ending in an open ended "Different Strokes for Different Folks" 'official' ruling and likely nothing will change.

Well, that's another example of how to make death more meaningful. And a good way, too. But without a harsh death penalty system you can't expect people to do it every time they die, because they don't play just for the realism but also for their personal entertainment (and waiting dead in a cave for hours rarely is fun for the player).

To me, the logical solution is to RP the death as a KO in most cases: then IC death isn't taken lightly or as something to shrug off, but the mechanics also don't restrict the player's enjoyment of the game. And, it still leaves room for getting killed by a monster if the situation calls for it.

In which case I have a request for the Dev team... To the IA Forum! *whoosh!*

No, we're not gonna implement a harsher death penalty system. I've seen the damage that can be done with harsh systems by asshats, you've no idea just how lucky you are that we're lenient in this department.

I've actually already answered this, somewhere on this forum, maybe a year ago or so.

Nah, penalty isn't what it's about. It's a matter of making mechanics that support the idea that a Malarite ripping your jugular apart in a death attack didn't kill you, etc.
It can be read here.

Don't be sarcastic, DustSpray. (As for Yossarin, you can be sarcastic any day!) Don't polarize the issue with exaggerated examples, either. I think the sensible idea is to do justice to the context and roll with the punches. If you're just casually patched up with a scroll after getting struck aside by a lumbering ogre, you might not want to treat it as personal divine intervention (which is what Raise Dead requires, anyway). If however your life is smothered by the litch's dark necromancy upon your failing an epic quest, and a priest fights his way in to save you with lengthy ritual, then obviously you were dead.

I don't see why the idea of situational awareness is so difficult to accept. Tasteful adaptiveness is a sign of confident roleplaying and good sportsmanship. Roleplay guidelines are ultimately gentlemen's agreements, after all, so it's only fair to expect everyone to be a gentleman or -woman (or give them the benefit of the doubt, anyhow).

Sarcasm? It was flair and an example you apparently don't care for. Go bark up someone else's tree silly troll.

I still say accept it for what it is in all cases other than PvP and Respawn.

If people can accept the "realism" of them going out and fighting ogres and magic that sears flesh and monsters and spiritual beings, they should be able to accept the "realism" of the setting that people happen to die when fighting these things. A lot. And there is magic that remedies what we consider a permanent state in our mundane world.

Last edited by IronAngel on Thu, Mar 24 2011, 15:17 PM, edited 1 time in total.

"Malarite ripping your jugular apart in a death attack didn't kill you" is a sarcastic remark in the context. Nobody said anything like that. It is common sense that if such indeed happens IC, you die IC. It is quite another thing to assume that the abstract mechanical approximation of combat in NWN automatically means that happens IC.

This is the fourth incident of you fighting me on a dead-obvious fact out of some strange grudge or principle I have no idea about. You've lost three times now, and I don't want to embarass you any more. So fine, you can maintain you didn't intend any sarcasm. If that's the case, I'm sure you'll be grateful for the clarification I offer.

But anyway, unless Nekh's call is about to be overruled by the team, this can be locked now. Thanks!

But death in NWN doesn't only come because of big and powerful monsters. It also comes because the server had a hiccup or the player didn't pay attention for a moment.

IronAngel wrote:

But anyway, unless Nekh's call is about to be overruled by the team, this can be locked now. Thanks!

Wait, wait, wait, didn't Nekh just say that was her own personal call? There's no ruling or anything that has been made. Weren't you just saying in the other thread that we shouldn't go rushing to count the opinion of one DM as speaking for the whole team?

Nekhy wrote:

No, but seriously. There's no rule on this. It's up to the player's discretion how they wish to RP it.

Is the ruling on this.

Quote:

I heartily recommend RPing PvM death as a KO, but I'm not gonna complain if someone wants to RP it as a full death. I'll just weep a little inside, if they die 10 times a hunting trip.

Is Nekhy's personal call.

Okay, just as long as that is clarified. The ruling is that there is no rule.

Huzzah for freedom of roleplay and lack of micromanagement!

The reason I wanted this locked is because I acknowledge my personal flaw: I'm going to get stuck debating whether something is tautologous or sarcastic or if there's a valid historical precedent etc. If you disagree with me, I'm going to get to the bottom of the disagreement and identify and pick apart the logic and argumentation until we see if somebody was right or if we all need to correct our positions. That's just what I do. And because the purpose of this topic is to publically clarify a rule for everyone, it's probably better I don't spam it full or rhetorical analysis.

The current call is now known, and if the DMs discuss this privately and come to a different decision they can reopen this or announce it elsewhere. But keep it open if you think it's prudent. Just don't say I didn't warn you about the post flood to come. :oops:

The fact is we are all right. Nothing has changed. You admit your lack of knowledge then turn and act like you are still a DM. I say that as one player to another player, come off it. There is nothing to argue here outside of the Death rulings. Consistent jabs earn you nothing and only demonstrate the character and the foot you wish to put forward under the persona of "IronAngel." Relax. Your embarrassments are known and I highly doubt anyone but you truly cares. :wink:

DustSpray101 wrote:

The fact is we are all right. Nothing has changed. You admit your lack of knowledge then turn and act like you are still a DM. I say that as one player to another player, come off it. There is nothing to argue here outside of the Death rulings. Consistent jabs earn you nothing and only demonstrate the character and the foot you wish to put forward under the persona of "IronAngel." Relax. Your embarrassments are known and I highly doubt anyone but you truly cares. :wink:

I'm relaxed because I enjoy this. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't having fun.

I'm not sure what you're saying with the rest of your post (all being right and nothing changing or any inconsistency of my behaviour) because it's rather vague and lacks concrete quotations and counter-arguments, but I guess that's not important within the scope of this topic. My PM box is open for elaboration.

Nekhy wrote:

No, but seriously. There's no rule on this. It's up to the player's discretion how they wish to RP it.

Is the ruling on this.

All players are right in how they play. Mechanics then becomes the hurdle for folks that have fun by not ignoring them, which is where I am now.

As for he rest it isn't important at all

just making sure we were on the same page.

Oh yeah. Well, people who'd try to enforce their decision on others aren't right, but I don't know if there actually are any of them anymore. So

Quote:

Huzzah for freedom of roleplay and lack of micromanagement!

Thinking up a mechanic that allows for PvM 'KO' RP seems enabling to me. Respecting RP is fine but disregarding mechanics can be limiting on enjoyment of the game. Any productive lore on the topic, or would it for sure need to be home brewed?

There is a good reason why I had Tuomas go to the trouble of going through a formal request process for just the ability to call his spells as non lethal.

Because, (and I'm sorry I'd REALLY love to see you explain in some of the more radical cases of magic how a spell is by default non-lethal, especially things like Implosion, Slay Living, Finger of Death, Wail of the Banshee) without some assistance like what he has, how in the heck do you pull, say a Barrage of Arcane Force Missiles (Isaac's Greater Missile Swarm) that slam into the centre-mass of the person with a rate just shy of your average Submachine gun.

I've no problem with the position of the DMs and Nekhy personally, however I personally hold to the idea that aside from specific situations or emoting it accordingly, -10 = Death.

Yes, short of a DM flat outright telling you that you're dead, there's no rule on PvM 'deaths'.

IMO Nothing is wrong with the way death is on Amia. Can't really force people to change their thoughts on death in a high fantasy game.

Last edited by Glyph on Thu, Mar 24 2011, 20:38 PM, edited 1 time in total.

ed: removed, again, for about the fifth time. I have nothing nice to say, but for the love of god read the DM manual and don't exclude RP from hunting. I could throw up right now.

ed: read my new sig for the win.

Nekhy wrote:

But death in NWN doesn't only come because of big and powerful monsters. It also comes because the server had a hiccup or the player didn't pay attention for a moment.

Shame. you still died.

Seems I am apparently outruled though. Have fun breaking lore every time you die because you want to godmod and be awesome.

My outlook on it is that the same way you can't claim you were "just knocked out" by a Fireball of death spell, it should be a little harder to claim you were the same when facing things that are trying to kill you. The things that are fighting you aren't pulling blows. They ain't using rubber axes and mallets either.

You think the Fire Giant you're facing is just saying "Oh, I'll just crush him beneath a little bit. Just enough to where he stops moving around. Even though he's trying to kill me, it's not like I have to return it." Besides, that explanation is provably inconsistent. If the creatures were just trying to knock you unconscious, wouldn't they stop when you were at -3 HP, dying on the ground? Well yes, they would, but they don't. They see you still twitching and go "Oops, got a live one" and walk over and smack you in the head with a club like a drunken sailor bashing a seal.

I'm not saying that they -always- kill you ICly, after all, I personally use that as my explanation of Respawning. But usually, if I'm in a party, and something kills me, and someone uses Raise Dead, I pretty much accept the fact that the PC was dead, even if the PC doesn't, you know? As much as it might "cheapen the meaning of death"(which is not a problem by the way, as that's the setting), it makes PC's look slightly loopy to take adventuring into a monster's den as anything less than it is. You are going to try to kill something. And you might die in the process. The same way no one goes into a knife fight thinking "Oh, whatever the outcome, at worst I get a little cut up and spend tomorrow in bed" the same way adventuring isn't reduced to "Oh, I'm just going to face some gorillas with machettes for hands, meh, if I get cut up, so what, they never kill me, I'll just crawl back home."

I'm not arguing for or against the ruling. Why would I, it allows me the freedom to choose the way I RP, just like it allows others to choose theirs. I'm just attempting to show that from an IC and "significance" perspective, RPing mechanical death as death(in all but PvP and Respawning) seems to make a little more sense than the alternative to me.

Why are PvP deaths different than PvM deaths? They're both in character. I must've missed that somewhere. (No, not in the rules.)

Also, since you guys like to use -10 alot, you do go quite beyond -10 sometimes as well. And by that logic, alot of the mobs have death effects, IE. Death Gaze, Death Magic, etc which DOES make you dead by definition. How could that even make sense to just 'knock someone out.'

Quote:

Seems I am apparently outruled though. Have fun breaking lore every time you die because you want to godmod and be awesome.

True words.

Also ; if anything, a raging umberhulk is more likely to rip your body apart and cause irreversible damage without actually even trying to, whereas in PvP, more than 75% of players (Alignments-guessimation- wouldn't mutilate or potentially even finish you off. Just my two cents.

If you are too unimaginative and set in your ways, that's your loss. I personally find it unbelievable that every single hit that incapacitates you would also kill you. A sword through the gut will put you out of the fight, so will fourth degree burns from a fireball. Maybe your organs even stop working, but that's still a far way from true death and the afterlife. Making any argument about 0 to -9 being incapacitation is pretty silly, because that suggests you take D&D mechanics seriously and automatically discredits your opinion. But gladly we don't have to agree because we both have freedom to go our own ways.

It is, however, unconstructive and rude to rant about other people's legitimate RP. The purpose of the topic is fulfilled, it may be locked.

Explain how you narrowly avoid death from a failed Finger of Death save?

Dark Immolation wrote:

They see you still twitching and go "Oops, got a live one" and walk over and smack you in the head with a club like a drunken sailor bashing a seal.

I seriously laughed so hard at that.

Also, death is death. If we're going to get all twitchy about this, we should probably get twitchy about every single thing here, and that's not fun for anyone. Play as YOU think it should be done, and let others do the same.

Quote:

because that suggests you take D&D mechanics seriously and automatically discredits your opinion.

Cool argument bro

Actually, to add to that:

Yes, I take NWN mechanics seriously, that's the system we're using in this world.

If we were playing another system, I would hold to it's mechanics instead.

In response to the arguments about "How is (X) death not a real death?" :

IronAngel wrote:

(...) Even PvM death is situational, sometimes a death is obviously a death whereas other times it could be something else.

IronAngel wrote:

(...) I don't see why the idea of situational awareness is so difficult to accept. Tasteful adaptiveness is a sign of confident roleplaying and good sportsmanship.

It doesn't seem like Iron was suggesting that things which obviously kill you, don't make you dead, from my perspective.

So being hit multiple times with a sword to the point where you fall down in a bloody mess and stop moving "doesn't obviously kill you?".

Again, I'm not saying it always happens, one way or another, that a PvM death is always a 'real' death, or that it is always not. I'm essentially saying there's a high likelyhood of either, which is why always RPing PvM deaths as KO's seems a little bit silly.

The only difference between Wail of Death killing you and you being chopped up with an ax or mauled by a pack of wolves is the the spell has a description that says "this kills you." So in the latter two instances, maybe the death isn't as guaranteed, black and white, but it's certainly the same death when it actually is death.

My view of the debate is that to keep death as a event that has significance and impact, you don't inundate yourself in it; if all agree that for a foray of killing monsters that the deaths of the PCs that may occur are things like becoming knocked unconscious (with whatever situational flavor) and that Raise Dead is a smelling salt and trauma kit, then those deaths are close brushes and maybe the PCs learn and polish their skills, or maybe they brashly regard themselves as impervious - but death itself remains potent because they didn't just experience it twenty times.

If there isn't flexibility in that, then why do we ever assume death should be scary to a PC in this first place? Scrolls are available everywhere, and even if you don't Respawn (which is what, exactly? Mystical forces or persons transport you back to your bind location, and we won't have issue with that, but being KO'd is right out?) if you lay dead somewhere long enough, someone will probably happen by and Raise you.

Dark Immolation wrote:

So being hit multiple times with a sword to the point where you fall down in a bloody mess and stop moving "doesn't obviously kill you?".

It might not. Perhaps two people having it out were striking each other not a thousand times over, but in a few key places to incapacitate, but the only way to express that with damage is to hack away.

At high HP, you can take dozens and dozens of sword hits at absolutely no impediment to your ability to fight or exist until you go to 0 HP. Some people play HP loss as every strike is wounding. Some play that at Near Death they are still just fine because mechanically, they are. So why pretend to have wounds at all? Why pretend to have a fear of death if mechanically, you're alive and fine until 0, then dead at -10.

We're here to pretend; it's what RP is. Some attach heaps of story and personally driven plot to their pretending; some prefer to have simpler games of pretending.

.../KO, if implemented as the general rule, Could really turn the table and actually make a Death realistic and worth something.
But at the same time - it would ruin a lot of RP. Assassins for instance?

Why make it "realistic" in a land of fantasy, though? That's something that I still struggle to see the viewpoint of.

There are so many more crazy, alien, metaphysical things provably existent our fantasy world(souls, Gods, magic, demons, afterlife), why oh why do some feel the need that death has to be "real". Death as it exists on our server is the reality of what death would be like in a world where you have magic and gods that come down and walk the earth and ghosts, and more importantly, a multiple methods for bring people back from the dead.

And why is it so easy to accept that your PC, as an adventurer, unless they're a devout pacifist, is going out a wholesale killing things? They are killing things that don't even come back(on an individual level), even. But for some reason your deaths must all be treated like "KO's" because it's not as "significant" as we'd like? Boy, I can't imagine how many countless mobs and spawns wished that as they witnessed the genocide of their friends and families.

We already have our fantasy version of "DEATH" as we know it. It's called Permadeath or death-by-old-age. Those are the deaths you don't come back from in our Fantasy world, and they are quite well avoided based on what they are. Your PC likely knows realizes the difference between going into a dark cave with friends and jumping headfirst into the mouth of a Elder Evil or Kezef the Chaos Hound.

In one instance "Gods, I sure hope I don't die, it's painful and well, I'll die, but at least there's a chance of my friends living and reviving me, or at least a random adventurer coming by later to revive us." In the other, its "Okay, this thing eats souls....maybe I won't be coming back from that."

Very_Svensk wrote:

.../KO, if implemented as the general rule, Could really turn the table and actually make a Death realistic and worth something.
But at the same time - it would ruin a lot of RP. Assassins for instance?

How would it ruin something that by the very nature of RP is fluid enough to decide how it goes between the people involved?

Or...

The existence of RP death as KO where it isn't told by the slayer to the victim that they have been killed does not harm or ruin avenues of RP. What would harm or ruin it is people deciding to not honor it, such as with the Target Player deciding that even once they are OOCly Raised so they can move with their killer, that they are not dead by have woken up and proceed to yell for help or run off - then yes, there are problems, but that issue has nothing to do with the concept of KO itself.

You gotta agree we need to do something about the entire 'Gets killed 5 times/day and still acts like it's nothing'. Maybe this is a type of 'Something'

And Letumlux example is between two decent players, Which are a minority on this server. (My opinion)

Dark Immolation wrote:

Why make it "realistic" in a land of fantasy, though? That's something that I still struggle to see the viewpoint of.
(...)
And why is it so easy to accept that your PC, as an adventurer, unless they're a devout pacifist, is going out a wholesale killing things? They are killing things that don't even come back(on an individual level), even. But for some reason your deaths must all be treated like "KO's" because it's not as "significant" as we'd like? Boy, I can't imagine how many countless mobs and spawns wished that as they witnessed the genocide of their friends and families.

It's okay, they respawn and there is never any impact. Why bring realism into this? (Tone of text: humored and satirical)

Last edited by LetumLux on Fri, Mar 25 2011, 0:54 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Very_Svensk wrote:

And Letumlux example is between two decent players, Which are a minority on this server. (My opinion)

Man, I hear this a lot but encounter these "indecent players" only rarely. Who are you guys playing with? (That's a rhetorical question.

)

I'm not arguing that it happens, because it clearly does and do to a wide range of people. I've found with my own experiences that most people are really reasonable, even ones who may be unhappy about there character being victimized - especially if you're not approaching it from an angle of "I kicked your ass because my character is so much more awesome than yours" and rather, approach it from, "This is how the story that we're both writing together in this moment has happened."

The attitude at which RP is done effects the people around you; if you're seemingly out to get them, then yeah, I can see how there may be unwillingness to play along. If you're in it for a compelling encounter, a page in a book so to speak, then I've experienced that all involved are much more at ease with set backs and horrific things happening to their characters because it's been established that they're not just being treated like some NPC, some resource for the other Player to use as they wish (even if the other Player's character acts like they are) and that they are an equal contributor in the event.

For DMS: PvM Death/KO

Who is online