[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Perma-death

[Matt Chatterley]

On 15/05/07, Tess Snider <malkyne at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/15/07, cruise <cruise at casual-tempest.net> wrote:
> > Is there /any/ ways perma-death can be implemented without being hated
> > by players?
>
> I used to be an admin on an RP TinyMUSH with permadeath.  So, what I'm
> about to tell you is not a load of ivory tower theoretical BS.  For
> permadeath to work for the players, you need to satisfy the following
> requirements:


I'm going to chip in here, because I think coming from a "Strong RP
(particularly MUSH-like; or similar game with strong resemblences to
table-top play) gives an interesting perspective on "permadeath". At least
half of my mudding in the old days was on a couple of PennMUSH games (I
actually  built and then ran one for a couple of years, too).

Much like with a strong-RP table-top game, death can BE an achievement or an
event, as can anything else - finding the "+28-and-a-half broadsword of
wonderfullness" might be great in a D&D campaign, but getting drunk in the
town tavern after a particularly rough day in the goblin caves can be at
least as (most likley more) fun.

I once chose to have a character of mine killed of, because I had been
roleplaying a long, complex storyline with a number of others, and, it
seemed the "neat" (and correct) way to close the story - he was a (not very
good) copper, who drank too much, and had a thing for the wrong girl - one
who hung out with some really heavy gangsters. His crusade to put the
gangsters away ultimately resulting in (most of) him being put away - in a
dumpster.

1.) Death must be rare.


Yup. Totally true in any type of game - because of the investment in the
character. This might be time spent grinding up to level 20, or it might be
the emotional attachment built up through roleplay (or indeed a
combination). Sometimes in RP-only environments its a natural conclusion -
this doesn't happen so much or even at all in "action based" games.

2.) Death must be meaningful.

3.) Death must be noteworthy.


Initially i thought "heck, these are the same thing", but they're not.
Meaningful - there must be a purpose. It's a means to an end - advancing the
story, offering closure, and so forth. Noteworthy - I don't want to blow
away the character I've been building for six months if noone knows about it
except me! They cross over a lot, though.

4.) Death must be avoidable, and it should be a *consequence* of
> something the player has consciously chosen to do.


Yeah. Although again in action-based games, it might not seem avoidable at
the time - "Hey.. no way man, I couldn't have avoided the Dragon's
mega-curry-breath-of-doom!". "Uh. Well. If you hadn't stuck that pike up his
nostril..". I know what you mean, though. It would be immensely annoying to
be blown away totally unexpectedly - e.g. if the dragon raided the town with
little or no warning, and incinerated you to a crisp before you had any
chance to take cover.

5.) The player must be able to make a new character with the same --
> or roughly the same -- level of ability as the old one.


I was going to nudge on this point as well, actually - this is common in
tabletop D&D. Once, in a group I played with quite some years back, we had
our first character death ever - we'd been playing for a couple of years,
and were all in the mid-teens in terms of levels (13-16ish, depending). It
was a fairly low-experience (but high adventure and immense fun) campaign
based on the Wrath of the Immortals set. My wizard bought it in a tragic
accident involving a bungled spell-cast and a high level scroll. There
wasn't enough left to ressurrect. The other chaps would have had to invent
the hoover to collect him up first.

I got to be DM's helper for a week or two, as we both manipulated the
storyline a bit to work in a meeting with a new mage, who was approximately
the same level, but of course, a nice fresh character. It was actually quite
refreshing to go through the process of getting into character all over
again - and differently.

This could absolutely work in a WoW type setting. You start a new character
with N points to spend, where N is 70-80% of the value of your last
character, plus you get a new set of equipment and so forth. You lose some
"points" and "value" of course - theres the punishment - and your new
character might not be exactly the same.

But then.. thats not really permadeath, is it? Hm.

#4 sounds hard to implement, but here's one example of how you could do it:
>
> Every player has a "Heroic" special attack/heal/buff that is wildly
> more powerful than her other actions, but if she uses it, any death
> for N seconds is permanent.


It might be interesting to look at combining some of the ideas - e.g. I
think Cruise mentioned different damage types, and here you bring in the
idea that you can't permanently die at ANY time, only during moments of
"vulnerability". Tie this in with a set of options to try and escape from a
fight which is going wrong, and unless you're in way over your head (in
which case, you knew you were taking a big fat risk), we might be making
some interesting progress!

> Well, the first question is surely why?
>
> I'm glad you asked this question, because it's the first one I'd ask
> you, if you hadn't already brought it up. :P


The first question is always "why?".

The trick is coming up with a better answer than "Because.".

;)


Cheers,


Matt