[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Matt Chatterley]

> From: "Freeman, Jeff" <jfreeman at verant.com>
>> From: Matt Mihaly [mailto:the_logos at achaea.com]

>> Not at all. Permadeath, to me, is simply a complete break between
>> one character and another.

> Ok.  As I said, it can't be done.  There's no way to prevent
> players from passing items from one character to the next.  It's
> the reason why (in Ackadia) I didn't even try to prevent them
> doing it.

>> I think of permadeath as being quite a bit like death
>> irl. There's no halfway.

> If you count the players possessions as part of their character
> then there's no *way*, either.

Hmm. The more comments I read on PermaDeath (henceforth PD!), the
more I think that its a concept which fits only games with very
strong emphasis on roleplay. In such games, the concept of
"Character" is much more strongly defined, and hence, the death of
said "Character" is far more than the loss of some stats and the
necessity to pass over a bunch of equipment.

Its nigh on impossible to categorise all Muds into simple brackets
(for instance, not all PennMUSH games will be RP-oriented, and not
all Dikus hack/slash based), but I do like the use of keywords (for
me, these are Roleplay, Adventure, Hack'n'Slash and Social - these
four seem to cover the main elements of any game which interests
me).

Within a H/S game, PD has very little meaning. Your Character is a
bundle of numbers, statistics, and basically a 'pure' avatar for
your actions and intentions.

In an RP game, the character is seldom an extension of yourself, but
is instead who you pretend to be - the part which you act. In PD
situations, the part is over, and you need to pick someone else to
act out in the story.

Adventure based games (my definition here is along the lines of
explore/collect/puzzle objectives) differ little IMHO from H/S when
PD is considered. Although you might lose different things, some can
be transfered to a new Character, who is simply a fresh avatar for
the player - nothing fundamental will change in playing style.

I think what I mean now is that this all comes down to playing
style, really.

I'm confused. Oops.

-Matt
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