[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Perma-death

[Phillip Lenhardt]

On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 12:08:52PM -0500, Tess Snider wrote:
> 1.) Death must be rare.
> 2.) Death must be meaningful.
> 3.) Death must be noteworthy.
> 4.) Death must be avoidable, and it should be a *consequence* of
> something the player has consciously chosen to do.
> 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.
> 
> #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.

This is a great example.  I've been mulling it over for a week, and frankly
I'm surprised no one else has responded to it.

I think implementing a Heroic Ability addresses not only #4, but #1, #3,
and (to a lesser extent) #2.  Permadeath will be rare (#1) because players
will rarely use their Heroic Ability in order to avoid the possibility of
permadeath.  Permadeath will be noteworthy (#3) because of that very
rarity and because it will always be coupled with the use of a Heroic
Ability.  Permadeath will be somewhat meaningful (#2) because it will be
the result of risk knowingly taken by the player, though the player may
have incorrectly assessed the risk/reward and thus feel cheated into a
meaningless death.

The biggest problem I see with Heroic Abilities is impressing upon a
player exactly what they have at stake by using it.  I would only allow
a player to earn a Heroic Ability after completing a very difficult
quest series designed to make the player aware of the risks inherent in
actually using it.  Further, the interface for actually triggering the
Heroic Ability should be different enough from other abilities and/or
require a confirmation step as to prevent accidentally using it.