[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[SavantKnowsAll at cs.com]

In a message dated 5/30/01 1:34:07 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
trump at vividvideo.com writes:

> Fake death is a fiction breaker.  The most important reason to want
> to have perma death is to keep the all important fiction alive (We
> are talking about RPGs here right?)

The most important reason to /not/ have permadeath is because nobody
plays to lose, and nobody is going to pay to play a game where they
can permanently lose an investment.  Yes, persistant characters are an
investment - of your time, and money.

The only way to include permadeath would be to design it to where it's
almost impossible -- and in effect, nullifying the point of having it
anyway.

Permadeath is nice to theorize about, and argue in favor of in context
of RP... but the bottom line is, Permadeath equates to losing.  Losing
in the biggest sense possible in the genre -- and nobody plays to
lose.

Gemstone III had permadeath, but unless you actually /tried/ to
permadie, it was impossible -- So what was the point?  And on the flip
side, if it weren't so difficult, would anyone really have played that
game?  Maybe, you can argue -- but how many would have played after
the first 6-12 months when they lost their investment?

Daniel
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