[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Freeman]

> From: Matt Mihaly [mailto:the_logos at achaea.com]
> On Sun, 17 Jun 2001, Jon Lambert wrote:

>>   Permadeath occurs when the player decides that the character
>>   they have been playing is dead.

> Yep, that's the definition of permadeath I've been pushing. It
> recognizes that a MUD has no control over when a character dies.

So, Matt, when someone says a MUD has resurrection, do you tell them
there's no such thing?  What about just plain ol' "death"?  Don't we
have some vague notion of what they mean by that even though MUDs
have no control over that sort of thing?  Would you completely
derail a conversation about some particular implementation of
resurrection just to make the point that there's no such thing?

The definition of permadeath you're pushing isn't useful for
anything.  So why use it?  Why prompt people to come up with a whole
new phrase that means the exact same thing that the old phrase used
to mean?

Just seems like a pretty fruitless exercise to me.  Particularly
since all the MUDs advertising permadeath aren't exactly leaping on
the bandwagon to erase the word from their vocabularies.  Permadeath
still means exactly what it used to mean before this big "It don't
mean nuttin'" side-track.  Did we just spend a month on MUD-Dev to
come to the realization that death on MUDs isn't real?

This is just going to hinder conversation.  Now every time
permadeath is mentioned in any sort of context, we'll have a big
debate about what it doesn't mean and how there's no such thing -
even though we all have a pretty good idea of exactly what is meant
by it - instead of discussing the actual post.  Until someone
finally says, "Oh, you're talking about what I like to call 'Full
Flava Death', not 'permadeath' - of which there's no such thing!"

Yeah, MUDs don't REALLY have any control over when a character dies.
So?  Would could knee-cap every discussion on any topic ranging from
PKing to resurrection with that.  I don't think that would be
particularly useful.

Maybe I can save some time: If I ever make the mistake of saying
"Permadeath" on this list again, please remember that I mean "Full
Flava Death", and forgive my Heathen ways.
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