[MUD-Dev] Alternatives to Permadeath

[Sasha Hart]

There is a distinction between permadeath as taking away ALL of the
player's accumulated game assets, and permadeath as ending the life
of a character. (Literally, presenting some message to the effect of
"You have died" with vaguely plausible game mechanics attending it.)

If you wanted to pull them apart, you could have assets carry over
between a player's characters or have multiple characters per
player.

These have been done and work just fine, to my knowledge. I have
heard of it in pen and paper, roleplay MUSHes, and if I remember
correctly mentioned in games done by people on the list. Obviously
they aren't going to work with everyone's designs, though.

Even further distinctions could be drawn out: for example, has the
game said to the player something like "You have died" or "This
person over here has died"? Whose identity died? Further: has
someone merely died, or has the player failed? To what extent has
the player failed?

What might work better for some people is sandboxing the player's
assets and losses someplace not tied to the player's avatar. This
way the player's connection to that identity, and as importantly his
friends' connection to that name, can be preserved without affecting
your ability to use the same old carrot and stick tactics. I mean,
uh, to give players a sense of persistence and investment. ;) Lots
of people are doing this already, one way or another.

Suffice it to say there are MANY ways to do PD. It comes down to a
whole cluster of decisions, not just "PD or not?"

Sasha

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