The best thing about permadeath, it gets players to act serious. In any "roleplaying" game, that is, a game where players try to act out some kind of role in society, the lack of permadeath seems to make a huge difference in the way players act.
In one MUD I played that included permadeath, all the people I met were VERY serious about avoiding combat. When you've had your character for three months and they're an important part of the society, perhaps being in charge of protecting the city, or maybe they're just a well-known guide from one city to another. Whatever the case, these people didn't want to die! Dying meant the loss of everything their character was, and that wasn't good. Starting all over isn't fun. Combat was strictly forbidden within the city, and people who PK'ed outside the city were hunted down.
Now, in another "roleplaying" MUD I played, where if you died, you lost your equipment and a bit of your skills and started back at the temple like nothing had happened. Here's a very recently clip from that MUD (after my character was being pestered by people to tell his name, but I was busy doing AFK things so...)
The gnome asks you: "You gonna tell anyone your name, or i need to make a name for you?"
The half-elf concentrates on his gem.
The gnome chuckles.
You say: "Your business is yours, gnome. My business is mine."
The gnome pats the half-elf on the head.
The gnome says: "Ok, then."
The gnome smiles.
The gnome says: "I'll call you unconscious man."
The gnome says: "You wanna know why?"
The gnome attacks you!
This is the type of behavoir that I think should be avoided in ANY roleplaying MUD. The goal of the MUD is to roleplay, to be a part of the world; not to kill everything that you don't like. If players were really interested in keeping their players alive, they wouldn't be attacking others without a good reason, and they'd have a lot of problems with the guards if they did...
Any thoughts on this?
ID:154287
 Feb 5 2002, 10:15 am
|
|
I like the idea of "permadeath" or at least a huge penalty for dying. It curbs PKers and makes a role playing game much more realistic for all those who want to roleplay. I suppose that you can't really call Diablo 2 an RPG, but whenever I play that on the battle net I prefer the "Hardcore" mode where permadeath is enforced-it makes the game much more exciting...but occasionally much more frustrating when you lose a high level character due to lag.
| |
Makes perfect sense to me.
But I still won't code that kind of permadeath into any game I make, because I don't fancy it. I will take the dippy roleplaying over the possibility of losing my character permanently. But I will definitely try to work Cerulean death in a way that prompts people to take it seriously. Z | |
There's a MUD that has both White Wolf werewolf tribes and Menzoberranzan drow houses?
Ugh... now I no longer have to lie when I call in sick today. | |
Lesbian Assassin wrote:
There's a MUD that has both White Wolf werewolf tribes and Menzoberranzan drow houses? Godwars. The stock Godwars deluxe has whitewolf vampires, mages, werewolves. Someone decided to add onto this, with drows. I've seen a MUD with Diablo II paladins, Final Fantasy Seed Elites, Menzoberranzan drow houses, forementioned whitewolf classes, and things like Daramon Monks and Daywalkers. Its a pk MUD base, I doubt whoever owned it originally cared and just mushed everything he/she liked together in a big puddle. Alathon | |
ok guys, this is kinda long, so just get a cup of coffee, and relax...
I play a MUD called Tibia. The makers of this game had to create another server, not only from userload, but from the amounts of pk's, hackers, and thieves... people need to roleplay more, i mean, in reallife, would you kill someone for no reason, or for calling you a name, or ignoring you like the thing with the gnome? what i mean is, MUDs need to find a way to permadeath justly, like if a character dies from doing somthing stupid, example: a lvl 1 goes and attacks a beholder with nothing but a fish... thats the kind of thing that should be permadeath, but here's why it shouldn't... example: a lvl 1 goes to kill a rat, gets lag from someone spamming, and dies... that shouldn't get permadeath, because it wasn't the players fault... i guess, the problem is, that people call their games RPG's, when, in role playing(like with D&D) after you die, you have to be resurected... not like in ultima online though... none of this, "run around as a ghost after dieing" crap.. online RPG's need to be more party oriented, meaning, maybe playing a MUD when you dont know anyone is a dumb idea... or maybe, after dieing, you should have to wait for 10 minutes in a locked up area... -Alan McFeely | |
Permadeath is only reasonable in games that focus on roleplay. If people in your game, for any reason, have a chance to kill eachother right and left, permadeath isn't good. But dying for good also adds to the story, because if a ruler is assassinated, it makes a big difference in where the plot goes; but it doesn't mean anything if they're just resurrected a few minutes later.
The stronger the consiquences in a roleplaying game, the more people play to roleplay. If they can't do anything about where the story goes, it's not fun. But, if your game is about, or even similar to the idea of going out to kill things for any reason, then permadeath isn't good. There's no reason that a roleplaying game needs to have that kind of violence at all. I think people tend to think that every medieval environment (since most of the MUDs, okay, all of the MUDs I've ever played are medieval) must work like some kind of western, where everyone has a gun and if people argue the one to shoot first wins. What about the stories where life is at court, and if you kill someone your disgraced and likely thrown into prison or beheaded. You gain power by outsmarting your opponents in the diplomatic way, not by having the bigger and better sword. Basically, a good roleplaying game won't have people dying unless there is a good reason for it...In my opinion. | |
Foomer wrote:
Permadeath is only reasonable in games that focus on roleplay. If people in your game, for any reason, have a chance to kill eachother right and left, permadeath isn't good. I disagree. Permadeath sucks in your average run-of-the-mill MUD because frequent combat and long-term character building are both emphasized. Take out either one--focus on roleplaying and social/economic play, or take out the long-term character-building and focus on pure PK--and permadeath isn't so much of a problem (though it will always be frustrating to lose a good character). I'd be inclined to go for a roleplaying solution, but hey, if PK is your thing, PK-oriented MUDs with permadeath do work. | |
I have always agreed with permadeath for roleplaying muds, it gets players to be a lot more serious. It also makes it more realistic. For me, when I play games, I always look for realism for some reason. To me, games seem a lot funner to play if they are realistic. However, I were to make a roleplaying game with permadeath, I would devise some type of an afterlife. When you die, you become a ghost, and wander the world a restless spirit. Your body may be brought to a temple and ressurected or a cleric with the propper spell could ressurect you. Of course these would both be very costly, and only the most powerful clerics could do this. After the body rotted away it would be impossible to bring you back. You could still do things as a ghost though, just not very much. For some characters, dying could even make you more powerful (maybe if you were a necromancer and had some certain artifact). I've always wanted to make a game that had a good simulation of the afterlife.
| |
even though i dont code much i would agree with the enforcement of permadeath, but that also causes some problems here are a few of em...
a.die because of a monster b.teleported to a later town then realize that the monsters are twice your own strength, and have no way back! both are because of in game enemys so the question is how can we illimenate pk'ers without being so strict? a.revived by a priest upon death due to a monster. b.delayed respawn(wait 1 in-game hour)and or fight time. c.GM approval and fight activation.(a GM must approve a fight and allow access to the p vs p fight) d.loss of all equipment+half of players gold. e."friendly fire" a button that allows or dissallows p vs p fights f.permadeath after a certain lvl(1-10=respawn/11+=permadeath g.3 strikes your out, each pk gives you a strike(bring in arena's which allow pk's without strikes) h.pk= banned from all cities, which means they get into fights with guards while in town.(guards have no exp/gold and "banned" must be distributed by a GM) i could think of more but i have to go back to learning some more dm and making ~sigh~... web pages so if you like/or want more imput just ask. Magus_XII | |
Permadeath is really only fun (in my opinion) in games where the focus is roleplay, not killing monsters. Games like Morte would be crippled by using permadeath, since it's just not fun to die against against the Bari King for the umpteenth time and have to make a new character at level 1 and start aaaaaalll over.
In roleplaying games however, I'd soon quit if the game contained "one town with monsters twice as powerful as the others". Roleplaying games generally have little to do with monsters. Usually the only element of them I see in a true roleplaying game is to make travel through some deep dark forest or similar place a little more interesting by being dangerous. You might get attacked by those fearsome lizardmen on the way! And chances are, getting attacked by anything that sounds remotely dangerous will be the end of you, unless you're a well trained combatant who's aware of the danger. Best solution when facing any monster, just as most people would probably do in real life: Run. Of course, there are always acceptions... | |
Foomer wrote:
Permadeath is really only fun (in my opinion) in games where the focus is roleplay, not killing monsters. Games like Morte would be crippled by using permadeath, since it's just not fun to die against against the Bari King for the umpteenth time and have to make a new character at level 1 and start aaaaaalll over. Yep. In any true roleplaying MUD, there are no remarkable advancements you can make. Even the most powerful knight in shining armour can be stabbed in the heart -- as he takes off his plate to request a kiss as reward -- by the so-called maiden-in-distress, who is wearing a concealed stiletto as her hairpin. The crucial thing to remember is that everyone in a humanocentric game -- that is, a game based on humans and/or demihumans -- is just human or demihuman. Nothing short of a divine miracle will ever give anyone enough health to survive a full-on assault by an army of ten-thousand. Yet, in AD&D, a single level 10 fighter can hold off thousands of orcs single-handedly. Even if the orcs manage to injure him to a point where he is worried about his survival (assuming the natural 20 rules, only 1 hit in 20 will land against his plate mail+3, and that will only cause 1d8 damage), he could just whip out one of his many potions of healing and be back in the game after a lull in the action for a couple seconds. Naturally, any competent GM would either have the orcs kill this character -- for being foolish -- or allow the orcs to overwhelm him and bind him -- by common sense. However, competence is something that most people don't have a lot of, and it's hard to teach a computer what is reasonable and unreasonable unless you prevent unreasonable things in the first place. The best way to prevent unreasonable things in the first place is to make anyone able to die, no matter how skilled they are. And let's see AD&D do that. =P (I find Gygax' arguments on having AD&D a "hero-based" system, where players are better than their peers, as rubbish. An AD&D game becomes an endless spiral -- when your human characters are running around at level 50 and above, slaying Asmodeus and any number of other idiotic creations designed to keep the game alive after the players are too powerful, you quickly run out of ways to kill players, since after each enemy slain, the players gain yet another level.) | |
I broke a contract with a demon lord, which he didn't favor much. I bound him in place, summoned some beholders and left to the umbra. I never heard from him again.
The other fight was with the owner of the MUD's mortal, a white howler if I recall(a mix between an angel and a purebred werewolf). Apparently I had 'dirtied' the air, and must be slain. Of course I was the evil nemesis, being a Black Spiral Dancer(Demon / Werewolf). I ended up killing him, and seconds after being deleted by him.
The third fight I happened to walk in on, and all I really saw of that was a blademaster slicing up a vampire into tiny bits and feeding them to the city guards.
The point is this : If you do enforce permanent death, and it requires a long time to reach a point where you can harm anyone, its going to drastically reduce the number of pk'ers. This forementioned MUD went one step further, and even punished the killer if he/she did not act in a justified manner. The player is bound to realize that if they choose to pick a fight, those 80 hours they just put into their little Fey-Branche Drow has a chance to go poof. The longer you make them wait, the more they will think about engaging in a lethal act.
Alathon