[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:19:22 -0000, "Matt Chatterley"
<mpchatty at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 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.

I was about to object to this, and then I actually stopped and
thought a little. On consideration, I think we're both saying about
the same thing. PD (petit diable?) is something I object to for one
major reason: it is an in-game (IG) mechanic designed to solve an
out-of-game (OOG) problem.

What almost all of the PD advocates I see are saying is that PD
prevents certain OOG problems. The PD opponents are saying either
that it most certainly does not prevent those problems, that it
trades them for other problems, or that PD sucks and you are all
gay. ;)

The real problem, I think, is that instead of designing a solution
to the problem and then wrapping it in a game-consistent explanation
-- people are trying to create a game-consistent explanation, and
then implement that as the solution. PD systems are usually added
either as a buzzword (sort of like "object oriented": sounds great,
means nothing) or as a patch for some perceived problem with
"normal" MUD death. As a patch, PD is generally nothing even close
to the solution the developers were looking for.

It's not that PD is *bad*, it's that nobody seems to be using it for
the right reasons. Everyone seems to think PD gives you something,
but it doesn't. It's just a buzzword. Nobody even knows what it
means.

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