[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Andrew Reisse]

A mud I played once a long time ago (it went offline, and I don't
remember its name), had "temporary permadeath", where when you died,
you didn't lose anything, no exp or items, you just had to wait half
an hour, unless you got resurrected by another PC. Also you had to
walk to a shrine as a ghost, and search for one if you didn't know
where one was. I actually liked exploring as a ghost, because you
could look around the dangerous areas and "consider" all the mobs
there, while waiting, and without getting attacked.

While 30 minutes isn't that long, consider what would happen if you
increased the wait to 12 or 24 hours or m= ore:

  People wouldn't want to die a lot, especially if they like playing
  the game, same as in exp loss systems.

  People might not get frustrated in having to advance from level 36
  to 37 again, definitely not the same as in exp loss systems. With
  many games, recovering from a death can take many hours, all of
  which are unpleasant and tedious for the player.

Note that under this system, it would probably be advantageous to
change the typical "mobs always fight to the death" routine into
something where PCs could be just seriously injured, and then they can
wait for regeneration or assistance, but the mob doesn't kill them if
they just lay there (althou= gh it might rob them or something) This
wouldn't have to apply to all mobs of course, just the more
common/weaker ones.=20

It might "feel" more like death, since they can't play the game for a
day or so, but then they could continue without any more
penalties. The time out f= or death could depend on the seriousness of
the death or the reason for fighti= ng.
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