[MUD-Dev] Re: Permadeath

[Nigel Chapman]

<EdNote: Reformatted for readability (I kinda like paragraphs)>

I can't claim to have tested what I'm here suggesting in regard to
player death, so take this only for it's ideas value.  I've merely
designed it in great detail at this stage.

> Eric wrote:
> > There are clearly ways of making perm death workable and palatable.

Not, I think, within the DIKU-Deriv family of MUDs, nor within the
pure RPG MOO families, that is to say, not at the extremes of M*+ing.

On MUDs with very high differentials between the abilities of newbies
and established players (who are, relative to said newbies, totally
invincible) the established players have put months of work into their
characters.  Permadeath, to be meaningful, must cost them a meaningful
proportion of that.  The cost, as such is very high.  (Consider how
aggro some players become opon losing a single piece of eg. Quest EQ
on games where that exists, and you'll see the obvious problem with
them losing a whole character -- and God forbid that it happens
through auto-fleeing into a deathtrap while lagged or disconnected!)
The whole structure of the game is incompatible with player death
because it revolves around long-term investment into a character.  On
a purely RPG MOO, Permadeath is rather meaningless because of the lack
of long-term investment in a character.

Between these two extremes, there is, I think, a balance that may be
found.  When I was looking at a way to redress the old-player /
new-player power imbalance, while improving gameplay, I came up with a
solution along the lines Dawnsinger hinted at:

"Ananda Dawnsinger" wrote

> I think dissociating a great deal of "character advancement" from
> the character itself helps a lot (in addition to making sure that
> permanent death is pretty rare).  While the characters aren't
> disposable, the player doesn't "lose everything" when his character
> dies.  He loses some stats (which he gets back later) and some gold
> (which he gets back later).

My approach involved maturity, multiplaying, permadeath and
generations.  The game is the proverbial Stealth MUD, designed to
revolve around information, deception and skill.

Maturity means that a player grows from newbie stature to maturity
over about 20-30 hours of gameplay.  They will still lack the
proficiencies of an established player, and their relationships within
the game, so will be functionally if not so much physically weaker.
EQ would not confer significant advantages beyond its obvious natural
properties, so skills would be the primary currency of the game.  In
any case, a player could be broadly competitive again within two weeks
or so of a catastrophe.  Playerdeath as such is meaningful but not
catastrophic (especially when added to some of the following ideas).

Multiplaying means everyone gets two characters which they can use the
ALTERNATE command to switch between in-game without logging in again
(whether for functional or espionage purposes).  They may or may not
make the name of their 'Alt' public knowledge.  In any case this
means, amongst other things, that they have a backup in the case of
losing one character, who can help them rebuild their other character,
and who can 'inherit' their inheritable goods.

Permadeath means, well... permadeath.  The character is gone, and
his-her name is prohibited from use for a period of time.

Generations are more interesting.  A player surviving for a
sufficiently long length of time may begin a family/dynasty.  This may
be with an assumed partner or an actual other player, and if both
survive sufficiently long, may produce offspring.  These may have
superior multiclassing options based opon their parent's classes.  The
primary thing about them is that they can be started as characters
with a considerable headstart on a 'new' character.  Thus a player
plays, not merely successive characters, but successive characters of
a dynasty.  There are many ideas still to be worked through here, but
you see how Permadeath in this context becomes an integral part of the
game design.

As I say, however, I haven't coded or playtested this, though I hope
to in the coming year.  These ideas are worked through in more detail
on my (slightly out-dated, the MOO is inactive) spec pages at
http://www.jesus.com.au/exchanges/psikona/index.html .  Feel free to
use anything which appeals to you, but let me know if you do.  I'd
like to see where you take it.

--

N i g e l   C h a p m a n

phone: +61 2 9546 2901, ICQ: 3684 1196
email: nchapman at bigpond.com

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