Perma-Death?

The following is from an e-mail conversation between me and another MUD-Dev contributor regarding Permanent Death for player characters. It was spurned by my question to him about what an “avatar” was after reading the link he sent to me on the same topic on Damion Shubert’s blog:

From what I think I know: 'Characters as avatars' refers to how people relate to the world. Is the character on the screen an extension of who the player is (my skill at quake makes me a bad player, consequently, my avatar is bad, too) or is it a fictional creation that has no connection beyond the strings that you pull upon (e.g., a puppet that is really good at quake).

Another way of thinking about it: by in large, people just don’t role-play elves. Instead, they role-play themselves acting in the particular context of the v-world that they find themselves. I can give you the example of someone in my pen and paper group.

This person created a character whose general back-story demonstrates a personality of gutsy heroism and adventurism. But they play the character as themselves in the context in which their character appears. So when their character is in a crowd, they tend to be shy, not bold or audacious. In online games, it is the same sort of thing at work.

Many designers think that players will bear in mind the scope of the toon that they plan, so that if you are, say, a dark elf walking through the shire, then you’ll likely kill someone. But what happens is that the player doesn’t. They go about their business, using the toon as an extension of themselves instead of a puppet. But the dominant concept is the person creates a character as an avatar, as a puppet that they will interact faithfully with what the cultural or designer’s perspective intentions are for that character. Again, if they play as a wizard, we sort of expect them to act intelligent and not like an ass.

Only the best of actors and role-players are able to separate themselves and use the avatar for what it is, but when they do, few people respond to it in kind. Instead, they’re blacklisted or put on /ignore for that RPG-Speak.

That's how I interpret and experience 'characters as avatars'.

>>>>>>><<<<<<<<

Okay, that's kind of what I thought that meant.

So, we're really talking about 3 separate issues: is permanent death an acceptable game mechanic?, is your character an extension of yourself or a role-play tool?, and how do you deal with high level characters?

As for perma-death, my approach is to have as much to keep the high level characters entertained as the low and mid level characters. I do provide for perma-death situations, but only in certain circumstances. For instance, when we're done, there will be 4 uber-dungeons (beyond all the others) that each have a lich as the "boss". The lich tries once every X seconds to perma-kill a character nearby. Liches don't wander around, but anyone stupid or brave enough to go into their lair has the chance for permanent death. To extend that idea, I'm placing a demi-liche that will kill your character, but won't perma-kill him. Your ghost is prevented from leaving the lair of the demi-lich until the demi-lich that killed you is destroyed, and a cleric casts "Remove Curse" on your ghost. Only then can you be resurrected. Almost as bad as permanent death:-)

In the context of my gaming group, I think that we always understood our characters to be "what we're supposed to be role-playing" but at another level understand that our characters often end up being an extension of our own personalities. Some of the guys in my pen and paper group always play themselves, even though each new character "is a real departure from what I usually play" (hah). The rest of us recognize that our first characters were basically super-extensions of our own egos, and have gradually tried to expand our role-playing abilities into new and different territories. Stretching yourself mentally and emotionally (playing a character in a game is definitely an investment in both) is hard to do for anyone and I think most of us understand that change comes slowly and in small increments, if at all.

I've never played on a pay-for-play server before, so I've never seen what you're talking about to a great extent. I think most of the more mature players, especially those with a pen-and-paper background, think of their characters in the same way as we do; this kind of duality between "an alternate persona" and an extension of the player's own personality.

My best experience was a place where most of the players were mid-20s with some 30- and 40-somethings mixed in with a few teenagers. Most of the players had prior experience with pen and paper gaming (experience that is lacking in many younger players and SO shows itself in their behavior, attitude and general approach to the game) so they were used to a more relaxed role-play atmosphere. When players would walk up to us and start talking in a way that was out of context, we acted as though they were trying to cast a dark spell on us, or as though they were insane. They either got frustrated and went away, or they got the hint and started to behave more like us. With any minimal amount of effort, we would then be more patient with them and try to encourage that behavior. I think that's absolutely the best approach.

Anyway, it's just strange. I'm glad I'm not in the game of "they're paying for it, so we have to eat shit". It's my world and I'll run it any way I like. If people don't like it, they can take a hike:-)

There's a lot to be said for that philosophy.