[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Matt Mihaly]

On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Madman Across the Water wrote:
> Matt Mihaly wrote:
 
>> So if they change, then how do they define the character?
 
> Therefore I answer with what I believe, through my anecdotal
> experience as a gamer, would be the answer given by most players,
> who know nothing about databases, flags, or the internals of a
> game. And I believe that most of them would not believe that their
> equipment was a part of their character. But then, most of them
> would believe their character had persisted if they had been hit
> with a curse that dropped all their stats/XP to newbie level. Or
> if they put in a request for a name change and it was granted.

Right, a character is a mental construction I think.

> I think that if, upon dying under the right conditions, your
> character were not brought back, and you were required to start
> another one, this is permadeath.

But we've already established that a character cannot be represented
in a database, so how could the code of a game wipe out a character? 
The more I think about it, the more nonsensical
permadeath-as-defined-by-code seems as a concept.


> If the new character gets everything the old one had, then it
> isn't really starting a new one. But, I'm going to continue to
> pick on Ackadia, which has both kinds of deaths. Especially with
> death followed by resurrection to contrast it with, I doubt there
> is anyone on Ackadia who doesn't feel that its brand of permadeath
> isn't permadeath.  Their character died, permanently. Their new
> one gets a consolation prize, but the old one is still dead and
> gone. To their greater shame or glory.

But the old one isn't dead and gone. The player can simply play the
same character, just with new database entries (and since database
entires fluctuate all the time anyway, is it any different? I don't
think so).

 
> But then, I tend towards the roleplayer side of the spectrum. So
> my characters tend to have an identity. Permadeath is anything
> that would cause that identity to cease.

So really, only by choice of the player can a character actually die
permanently (ie suffer permadeath) regardless of game
mechanics. That seems good.

 
> But once we get to this level, there is no permadeath. It's an
> impossibility. Once you allow for a character to move from one MUD
> to another... I could have a character permadie on some MUD, then
> make a new character, and make an effort to acquire all the exact
> same skills, etc, and claim that I am the same person. Hell- in
> various tabletop games I've played, characters have transfered
> players- Sean quits, and Gary takes over playing The Black
> Fox... and made him his character. So even killing the player
> doesn't cut it. So permadeath is impossible.

> If we disagree that permadeath is impossible, than the above can't
> be the definition we want to use for permadeath. And that
> definition may well be fluid- what counts as permadeath on one MUD
> may well not on another- a MUD where everything about your
> character is equipment vs one where there is no equipment, for
> example.

Permadeath isn't impossible, it's just that a game can't mandate it.

 
> So, the new question- what is _meaningful_ "permadeath"? Ackadia
> has permadeath of a sort that has a function and it successfully
> serves that function. ZAngband (my Roguelike of choice) has
> permadeath. You can avoid it by abusing the saved game, but I'm
> among those that don't do so, and it makes it much more meaningful
> when you manage to have a winner when you know permadeath lurked
> around each vault.

I have to say, that doesn't sound like meaningful permadeath. Heh,
the cliche "He's still alive as long as we remember him." seems
fairly apt here.

 
> I'm not sure where to go from here- I think permadeath can exist
> and is meaningful. Aside from that it's all vague.

I do too, I just don't think any game can legitimately claim to have
any control over whether the characters in it die permanently or
not.

--matt

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