[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Jon Lambert]

John Buehler wrote:
> Jon Lambert writes:
 
>> How about this definition:
 
>>   Permadeath occurs when the player decides that the character
>>   they have been playing is dead.
 
> Actually, I was thinking about this the other day - that
> permadeath occurs when OTHER PEOPLE decide that the character you
> have been playing is dead.  I can claim to be Charlemagne all I
> want, but nobody is going to believe me or act on the idea that
> it's true.  If the systems of the game are sufficient to make
> players believe that Bob's character is dead, it's dead.  But
> we're still playing with that grey area of perceptions.  The next
> step is to talk about why people would assume that the next
> character played by me isn't the same as the last character played
> by me.  I took my stab at that in my last post on this thread.

I had thought about that angle but then I have a little trouble
defining who the other people really are, and whether it's simply a
majority view or unanimous view.  Do you confine "others" to those
who knew Bob the recently deceased?  Then Bob is dead is most of
them agree that Bob is dead.  Certainly even if Bob2 is played by
the same player, they might still conclude that Bob is dead, and
Bob2 is a wholly different character even if substantially similar
in personality to Bob.

In truth we are talking about two kinds of permadeath, one part
social and one mechanical.  In a role-playing game death is social
or much more like real death.  One knows that Bob is dead.  One will
never ever interact with Bob again.  One accepts that.

Another interesting feature is that in many muds players seek death
as a mechanism to starting over in the "social aspects" of the game.
It's _rare_ but sometimes a socially obnoxious and/or outcast/banned
player changes their ways and attempts a second chance at returning
to the game.

--
--* Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD        Email:jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com *--
--* Mud Server Developer's Page <http://tychomud.home.netcom.com> *--
--* If I had known it was harmless, I would have killed it myself.*--

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