Permadeath: Thoughts? Improvements?
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As noted in the Spark Finale thread, Zool pointed out that permadeath under specific instances should be considered. I offered to make a thread to get the current idea of what we all consider acceptable.
That being said, what should be grounds for permadeath? I have two examples I use for PD debates:
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If the death is epic enough in scope (universal epic, not player-defined) IE you died fighting a dragon and they used a breath weapon on you, ending your life. That is more than acceptable.
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Dying to a random orc in the Hullack. This isn't acceptable, it's a crappy death and should never be considered for PD.
Granted, these two are extreme examples bit should properly illustrate what it means to accept a permadeath of a character, thus whitelighting.
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IMO, PD should be used in situations where you place put all your chips on the table, and where the success rate carry serious consequences. That being said, it should never be about purely mechanical survival, but just as much influenced by your planning, build up and execution of event.
For full on Perma death, such should only be used as Forte describes, if you die in some insane way. Otherwise, a "light" version, where you can be raised, depending on whether your team mates survive to raise you could be used far more frequent.
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Here's how I personally handle it, and I think, how DM's have traditionally handled it.
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Perma death events are big - server changing events, normally at the end of some over-arching plotline.
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Players MUST be informed before embarking on the event that perma death is a possibility.
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Death within the event, doesn't neccassarily mean you are perma dead.
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Various specific parts of an event can cause permadeath.
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An example might be - If you meet the big boss, and he kills you with some special method - you are permanently dead (a dragon literally eats you, chomping you into bits, AND escapes, so you can't be picked out of it's stomache after the battle). Or, if you fall into a massive volcano/portal to a pocket plane of pure negative energy/Insert other obviously unrecoverable situation. Or, you die, and people are forced to flee without being able to recover your corpse, or use a ressurection spell on you.
There are tonnes of possibilities and they depend on the event in question. But just "You were killed by one of the monsters during the event, you cannot come back" would never be a way I would handle it.
The way I try to look at it is. - Does this make immediate and obvious sense that the character has been utterly destroyed?
If not, then I wouldn't enforce permanent death.
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Posted this on the poll thread, not sure what thread is relevant one, so copying here too.
@savn said in Spark of Divinity Finale:
@zool said in Spark of Divinity Finale:
Personally I'd go for perma death under specific conditions.
Kinda like Verks position on it, but with some interesting possibilties perhaps.
I don't really like "If you die at all, your just dead"
My position on perm death is this. Blanket policy of if you die, you are perma dead is something I vehemantly dislike.
I spend the majority of my time IG not questing, limiting it to a couple quests a day, and alot of my gold on others. The notion that focusing on roleplaying, character interaction, exploring or investing in other characters might make it -more- likely my pc is permakilled, for lack of levels, and consumables sits very poorly with me.
It also creates an enviorment (for me at least) where if invited to a quest where permadeath is a possibility, every moment I am ig not preparing resources for it by grinding quests, with smallest party possible, because rewards are better that way, is time wasted, and something that might rob me of that healing, or haste, of displacement, deathward potion I desperately need to avoid losing my character for good.
My opinion is that the increased rewards if you survive a permadeath event is a way of rewarding mechanical competance as opposed to storytelling, especially if that loot is then further used to survive other dm quests, getting even more, and even better loot. The same issue I have with how the thayan arena works in practice.
Finally, putting established and key characters in a position where they might well be permanently killed this close to a wipe around the bend might well snuff what little player numbers exist IG, while people opting to bow out until v6 and the wipe roll around.
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Honestly, perma death events, for me, make for good retirement events for well established characters, who have been working on a specific plotline for a good while.
I would always discuss this possibility with a player before hand, to see if they would be open to retiring in this way. And if they were, I would likely come up with a way to make them be likely the only true casualty, probably through some heroic/nefarious deed, hopefully remembered by characters into the future.
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Under no circumstances should a pc be forced to participate in an event that very likely will have good chances of permanent death. That’s basically almost forcing someone to lose their character.
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Under no circumstances should every event have percent death as a possibility Unless you do something stupid like - jump into a pool of lava.
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Players should not get to vote on whether or not an event will include player death. I’m sorry but, half the people I see voting on that forum likely won’t even been attending the event and likely only see voting for different reasons.
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Before making an event include permadeath, consider if it will actually be fun to other players to include it.
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Permadeath should be /rare/. It shouldn’t be a common thing among events. Why? Because there are going to be people who simply are not ready to retire their character or don’t want their character to die just yet because they’re not done telling that characters story. So they’re going to avoid that event. And that will lower participation by boycott. And then you have times of stagnation because people don’t want to be killed off prematurely.
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I agree that characters need to end at some point. But I don’t personally find this inclusive of roleplay or a story narrative. It counteracts roleplay. And while a little permadeath death here and there is good- having it every other event is not fun.
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This is my opinion, but I am a firm believer of having complete control over ones character. It’s not fun to have things forced on your character sometimes. For me, I spend hours putting together character concepts. I genuinely /make/ a new person. And I do my best to bring that character to life with their own thoughts, opinions, quirks, and eprsonalities. I treat it like a new piece of artwork. Having it burned without my consent or control isn’t fun to me. I much rather come up with my own death for my character, or participate in an event that I’ve caused via character’s actions and have them die that way. I realize that isn’t how real life works, but this is a game. It’s not exactly meant to be real life, it’s meant to be fun. I’m sure plenty of people won’t share this opinion, and that’s fine. It’s just how I feel.
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I like Perma-death. Final death is the mark of conclusion. I will take untimely final death over a character becoming stagnate after achieving or not achieving goas longterm and short. Death is the release characters and players need from concept stagnation.
Imho.
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I was gonna post a bitter snide rant. But @Lady-of-Dungeons made a nice list of my thoughts with out the latent bitterness.
Good show. also +1
@lady-of-dungeons said in Permadeath: Thoughts? Improvements?:
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Under no circumstances should a pc be forced to participate in an event that very likely will have good chances of permanent death. That’s basically almost forcing someone to lose their character.
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Under no circumstances should every event have percent death as a possibility Unless you do something stupid like - jump into a pool of lava.
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Players should not get to vote on whether or not an event will include player death. I’m sorry but, half the people I see voting on that forum likely won’t even been attending the event and likely only see voting for different reasons.
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Before making an event include permadeath, consider if it will actually be fun to other players to include it.
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Permadeath should be /rare/. It shouldn’t be a common thing among events. Why? Because there are going to be people who simply are not ready to retire their character or don’t want their character to die just yet because they’re not done telling that characters story. So they’re going to avoid that event. And that will lower participation by boycott. And then you have times of stagnation because people don’t want to be killed off prematurely.
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I agree that characters need to end at some point. But I don’t personally find this inclusive of roleplay or a story narrative. It counteracts roleplay. And while a little permadeath death here and there is good- having it every other event is not fun.
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This is my opinion, but I am a firm believer of having complete control over ones character. It’s not fun to have things forced on your character sometimes. For me, I spend hours putting together character concepts. I genuinely /make/ a new person. And I do my best to bring that character to life with their own thoughts, opinions, quirks, and eprsonalities. I treat it like a new piece of artwork. Having it burned without my consent or control isn’t fun to me. I much rather come up with my own death for my character, or participate in an event that I’ve caused via character’s actions and have them die that way. I realize that isn’t how real life works, but this is a game. It’s not exactly meant to be real life, it’s meant to be fun. I’m sure plenty of people won’t share this opinion, and that’s fine. It’s just how I feel.
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- There should always be events that can cause permanent, violent death to a PC. It's supposed to be an RPG, not some kid's game where the heroes are all immortal. Without risk, there's no stakes - and it's impossible to roleplay fear or take threats seriously. If the evil ultra lich /won't/ eradicate some PCs, then why should I fear him? At that point it's just make-believe without stakes.
- Permadeath should be a possibility, and more frequent if an event is more dangerous - but players should be warned at least in character that this is a likely outcome so they can make informed choices about wanting to be part or not.
- Participation should be up to players, but not whether or not there is a chance of death.
- Before deciding to have no permadeath events, make sure you know how much less fun events are when there are no stakes or real, permanent risks. Losing a character in a heroic event gives that character meaning and completes his story - it's a perfect chance to try out something new after.
- Permanent death should be relatively common so as to maintain the integrity of the world. If players can simply say "nuh uh, I didn't want to die" it takes the entire stakes & integrity out of roleplaying and leads to, frankly, boring characters and an even more boring world.
- Characters that never end are almost impossible not to be boring, though it can be done. Not ending characters counteracts roleplay - a story has a beginning and an end. A soap opera that never ends is fun only for a very small segment of the population. Knowing every event is 100% is not fun.
- In my opinion, you should never be in control of your character. Or rather, your control ends where other characters begin. Your control extends to the choices your character makes, but this does not protect you from the consequences of these choices. Without (possibly fatal) consequences, the act of adventuring has no meaning. I cannot even imagine a pen & paper group where your characters can't die. What'd be the point? Why even try to stay alive if you know the DM won't let you die? Why risk anything ever if risking things is no different from not risking things as the outcome, survival, is known in advance?
This is a game, and not meant to be like real life. In this game, I want to be able to be bold and do things that are dangerous, things that could kill me in real life. I want to fight and enjoy conflict against cunning monsters and players; I want to face death and lose a lot, so I can savor that one time in a hundred where I come out on top.
"That being said, what should be grounds for permadeath?"
This is a good question so I will give the answer I personally like. Permadeath should be the consequence of any and all PVP conflict, so as not to cheapen the death (though here, this is an unpopular opinion.) But that's not what you asked; you are talking about quest & DM quests. On mechanical quests, permanent death should never be a possible outcome unless you are warned ICly or OOCly of the possibility before you take the quest. The same is true for DM quests.When is permanent death fair game on a DM quest?
This really depends on what tone a DM is going for. How much desperation / oppression do you want to convey? How dangerous is the antagonistic force? Generally speaking, permanent death should not be overly common on DM quests, but should always be a looming threat for people that make exceptionally stupid decisions. Much respect to them if these are made to remain in-character -- something others tend to remember. I think I agree with the stance that it should be mainly for things on the more 'intense' side -- such as fighting a powerful dragon or lich. But there could be other circumstances: remaining stranded on a different plane (a cool retirement!), becoming enthralled to an aberrant, having to draw lots and sacrifice a party member, or, more interestingly, an evil entity offering you a chance to avoid fighting their minions if the party slaughters one of theirs in front of them, sith-style. Those sort of things make the world come alive and ensure actions have consequences. These are intense, memorable endings and far more preferably than living a boring life.I don't think a death against some random NPC monster you fight on the way should ever be permanent unless it's a truly epic, server-changing quest and you, say, have a very serious IC reason for it -- for example, you're on a ship and it is sinking and there's no time to lug a body. But even then, there should be some leeway - if a player risks dragging the body anyway, he should have that chance.
So essentially, it should be there when it doesn't make sense not to be there. There's nothing that makes me unhappier than when one shies away from permanent death just to 'protect someone's feelings' -- if you are so attached to a character that you can't stand the thought of losing him, I think you're too attached. That's maybe a strong statement but I stand behind it. You should never be so attached to your character that you aren't willing to risk losing him doing something cool.
Permanent death events/chances should be opportunities to go out doing something Awesome.
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I'm not here to change people's minds. I'm here to express my point of view. I come from a server wheere dm events never have permanent death events. They average 30-40 players a day. And the events are genuinely fun. Just some food for thought.
It's okay to have alternative opinions. And there is always risk to a character ic when doing something crazy. Death still has major penalties even when its not permadeath.
Personally, I am for creativity and telling a story. To me, it's not boring at all to tell your story without threat of dms permanently deleting your character because of permadeath. Even though I was happy, on the previous server, to kill off my character if the death was harsh enough. It's just not fun, ever, when something is forced on you.
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Perma death has to be pre-warned, it is our own rule. Neither can we force it upon any player to take part, also a rule.
I like Perma death events when they make sense and offer excitement in the story, a good ending. But they should be kept rare to keep their spark.
Also during Perma Death events, if you die by a bug or something lame, the DM will raise you if you want the DM to.