[MUD-Dev] Permadeath or Not?

[John Buehler]

Corey Crawford writes:

> There's an interesting discussion about permadeath going on, on the
> new Star Wars Galaxies site

Thanks for the pointer.  It's always interesting to see a debate over
permadeath.

Are we allowed to rehash the rehash of a rehashed discussion here?  ;)

A death model that has some fascination for me is one where death is
uncommon, but when it happens, the only thing that happens is that the
body drops and is motionless for some period of time.  During that
period of time, the player cannot play the game.  Temporary
permadeath.

A. This scenario is postulated for a fairly mundane world.  No
fireball-slinging, dragon-riding wizards here.  It's mostly about
subtle magical effects, character perceptions, strategies and tactics
- when it comes to combat.  Swords and shields, chain mail, spears and
long bows.  This is my way making 'uncommon death' viable.

B. 'Uncommon death' is death that happens once a month or less for
characters that are engaging in lethal adventures.  In all that sword
and bow activities, characters will be wounded and must be able to
withdraw.  If they push it too hard, they will be downed, but not
killed.  NPCs would not administer killing blows, but PCs are
certainly capable of it - knowing that they could be knocking somebody
out of the game world for a day or more.  The difference between the
medieval period and this fantasy environment is primarily the
durability of the people.  Their wounds don't fester and grow
gangrenous.  They tend to heal.  The reason that nobody wants to get
TOO beat up is because the healing curve favors lighter wounds.  Not
geometrically longer heal times for worse wounds, but along those
lines.

C. When your character drops dead, it stays where it is, possibly
subject to being moved.  I'm unsure about the whole movement thing.
Sometimes it's desirable to move, sometimes not.  Sometimes required.

D. I've mentioned before how I'd like to see corpse robbing work: if
you take something from a body, it can be reported as a theft, and the
NPC/PC justice system can then track you down or simply reject you
from their society for your wrongs.  It need not be reported,
especially if the item was taken by a buddy, and the original owner
isn't too bent about the involuntary loan.

E. The time out of the game is determined by the severity of the
death.  Getting killed by a series of sword cuts is at the low end of
severity.  Being chopped in half by a giant, crushed by a fall from
500', or being incinerated by a dragon are at the high end of
severity.  They each correspond to greater inherent risk as well.  So
the deterrent for doing dangerous things remains intact.  The time out
of the game is in 24 hour increments, by the way.  When your character
dies, you either go do something else, talk to other players using
some chat mechanism, or go play a secondary.  Or stop playing that
game because you didn't pay all that money so that you could be locked
out of the game (I'd go with an hourly rate to allay such perceptions
somewhat - perhaps $0.20 per hour).

F. Character power levels remain low, while monster power levels can
get inordinately high.  For example, a dragon cannot be killed by a
single man, barring an epic-inspiring lucky blow, as in The Hobbit.
As I recall, a town spent a long time peppering away at Smaug without
effect, and only inside information and a special arrow launched by a
supreme master in a work of fiction that needed a dead dragon was
enough to bring it down.

G. No resurrections.  There are NO reprieves from this death model.
It must remain an absolute.  Okay, I'll bend a little on this.  In my
model of priests and miracles and such, it would be a once-a-year kind
of thing to happen.  It's a huge favor granted by a god to one of its
most devout priests for having built up massive faction with that god.
Once that faction is burned, it takes a long time to build it up
again.  So it can happen, but it's probably not worth it unless the
character was either an NPC (which stay dead permanently when killed)
or it was a player character that was nuked by a god for stealing from
him or some such thing, and the death might last a couple weeks.  You
risk all, you may lose all for a long time.

Scenario: You and your buddies storm the orc camp.  You use that
subtle magic to take out the guards, and you also use a diversion on
the far side of the camp to draw away some of the garrison.  Then you
plow on in, trying to fall on the rear of those who were drawn off.
But, one or two of your number fall.  One is actually dead.  The one
that dies drops where he is, motionless.  During the retreat from the
camp, nobody has the time to drag the body out, so it sits in the
camp.  Those who are slightly wounded, limp their way back out in the
withdrawal.  The orcs, content to drive off the invaders and tired
from the fight, do not pursue the wounded men - but they might launch
a few potshots with their bows.  The force of men dissipates (it's 2AM
eastern time) and the next day, the one character who died starts to
groan and stir.  The orcs pretty much ignore it.  Artificially so.  So
long as it doesn't present a danger to them, they don't attack it.
They simply remain wary of a human in their midst.  This would all be
part of the NPC intelligence and perception model.  The
terribly-mauled body is left to drag itself out of the village, so
long as it heads OUT of the village.  Trying to move near anything of
value or acting in a threatening way would only increase the perceived
danger level and could result in reprisals.  Attempting to heal up in
the middle of the camp results in the character crossing some
perceived level of lethality, resulting in reprisals.  So the
character must crawl out of the camp and *then* recover.  This, after
having been unable to play for a day or more.

Scenario: You and your buddies storm the dragon lair in a frontal
assault.  The dragon breathes fire, incinerating the lead four men,
who are all dead for several days, and the dragon fire also
incinerates most of their belongings.  The rest run away because they
don't want to be dead.  The dragon goes back to sleep, with the usual
one eye open, waiting for the next set of spam in a can.

The worst abuse I can imagine of this is running into the camp,
getting beated down but not dying, then waiting in the camp and just
observing the camp for a long period of time.  A kind of tolerated
spy.  To counter this, the NPC intelligence model must have a
cumulative threat mechanism where the near-dead spy's body is hauled
and dumped out of the camp somewhere.

JB


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev