[MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[Brian Hook]

At 12:57 PM 2/26/01 +0000, Richard A. Bartle wrote:
> On 26th February, 2001, msew wrote:

>> One of the problems with this method is that classes that die more
>> often are going to be really harmed.

> From my point of view, that's an indictment of classes, not of
> player death.

Not to sound too flippant, but that's just picking a nit.  Rephrased,
that could be "One of the problems with this is that _players that
embark on life threatening activities_ are going to be really harmed".

Of course, you could counter that players that embark on life
threatening activities should be put at a disadvantage, but in the
types of games that I envision, putting yourself in danger is somewhat
ordinary -- heroic fantasy, space opera, etc.

So if doing the ordinary things you expect to do as a hero -- or as
the type of hero you choose to play (say, a "tank") -- has such a
massive penalty, then the game itself may not be very fun except for
those people heroically making bread and armor =)

> Again, that's an argument againt dying too much rather than dying at
> all.

This comes back to what I said above: if (and, given that we're
talking about a game that has a concept of character death, this
should be a safe assumption) the point of the game is to allow players
to adopt the personae of heroic characters that regularly engage in
adventurous, dangerous activities, then either you kill them a lot or
you don't.

If you kill them a lot, then things, paradoxically enough, feel more
realistic because the player is suffering from putting himself in
dangerous situations.  If you don't kill them a lot, then they're
demigods with little fear of their surroundings.

Either way, permadeath or excessively large death penalties really
make things less fun and interesting for me, primarily because they
discourage exploration and bravery.  Sure, you have to punish/dissuade
the reckless crowd, but you really don't want to go overboard
punishing someone that just has an explorer's heart.

> Also, it may well be the case people wouldn't die anywhere near as
> often if they lost everything when they did die - they'd be far more
> careful.

Heroic characters != careful all the time.

- Hook

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