Adventuring - Permadeath

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Obsidian Sea
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Adventuring - Permadeath

Postby Obsidian Sea » Sun May 22, 2016 10:37 am

Hey everybody!

I've had a few topics rolling through my mind that are only fit for use on a Roleplay Discussion thread, and foremost among them is this one: permadeath. We haven't, thankfully, had many disaster cases lately in the way of out-and-out death in adventures, but Oghma knows it has happened before, and the landscape of The Easting Reach is a veritable 'whose who?' of adventurer headstones. I cannot, however, recall the last case of permadeath among the community of players we frequently have seen. So, frankly, my question is this: why not?

Of course there is something to be said for being victorious! It's always good and often the case these days that we succeed in vanquishing Evil and escaping with the treasure, but I wondered if there was any reluctance among players to retire their characters in this grim way? I know that there are certain PCs who have actually done more for the community and their good names in death than they ever did in life - which isn't to say that I'm exactly glad that they died, or anything, but I was interested to know if permadeath seemed like a failure, or if perhaps it was something that players hadn't considered? Those with smaller character banks might be the more reluctant to indulge in a bit of permadeath, which I can absolutely understand, although I have to confess that even for myself, I do not discount the possibility that my characters, precious though they are to me, might meet their end any day now. I find juggling to be very hard work, and permadeath would be an easy solution to having to roll between 3 characters and DMing responsibilities. What is the opinion on permadeath among those with larger character banks?

Anyway, I just thought I would open the thread to gauge player opinion on the idea. I have had very exciting and touching experiences with permadeath, and if nothing else, hoped to open this thread as a reminder to people that it is an option, and one that to my knowledge has always been respected and respond to with the due degree of deliberation and sobriety by other members of the playerbase.
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Re: Adventuring - Permadeath

Postby Vogelens » Sun May 22, 2016 10:49 am

I am not against permadeath, in itself personally. I do think it can lead to great things. I have permakilled many characters off in the past, it can promote RP.

Though, when it comes to permadeath it is something I think the player should decide for themselves mostly, when their story comes to an end. In my case, I would be reluctant to permadeath my main character (Also as I essentially have just the one character I greatly enjoy, I tried alts that never lasted or were not as much fun).

It can be a powerful storytelling advice, but ultimately I think the choice should be mostly in the player's hands. Unless, of course, they end up dying so much where one of their ability scores drops below 3 but that is a different matter. :P
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Kerstman
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Re: Adventuring - Permadeath

Postby Kerstman » Sun May 22, 2016 11:34 am

I very much agree with Vogelens in this. I have retired characters of myself in the past by simply having them die, but the characters I do enjoy a lot I wish to continue. It should always be my choice if it is a matter of life and death. Setbacks such as dying without permadeath but with losing stats are sufficiently meaningful to both me and the characters I play. Having said that I would not mind seeing events where it can be the case that your character may end up permadead or where something like a raise dead is not enough to bring them back to life, but a resurrection is needed. You can think of adventurers being ported to the planes or being disintegrated by something magical. But in such instances it should be 1000% clear for both DM and the affected player that it may lead to such and it should never come as a surprise. If players do not wish to risk permadeath then they can simply choose to not indulge in such events. With one of my PC's I've been in an event a few weeks ago where it very much felt like that it may be the final event for him and it was an intense and extremely awesome experience also because it was emphasized by the main player involved that the mission of that day may well be the end for them all. Future even riskier events as those can be properly epic and heroic for those characters that do join in and those who fall can be commemorated as the great heroes of Impiltur.
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Re: Adventuring - Permadeath

Postby Holy_Rage » Sun May 22, 2016 12:30 pm

I am a very fond advocate of permadeath, especially in an E8 setting such as ours. I believe it does add an incredible amount of depth to the Role Play involved: no dungeon outing is ever the same, calculated risks become much more vital and death is not a minor setback. I would not mind at all having permadeath by DM ruling applied server-wide (or even mechanically, should there be a consensus on the concept and its implementation).
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Re: Adventuring - Permadeath

Postby Kilaana » Sun May 22, 2016 12:31 pm

While the server was undergoing its Alpha development phase, there was a discussion on the old forum very similar to this and it proved very educational, setting the ground for our death system as it is today. There were quite distinct opinions; for many roleplayers the amount of time and effort meant letting go of their characters never to see them again was quite a turn-off. On the other end of the scale, a rare few others enjoyed the permanence of a character's death and perhaps felt this appropriately reflected a low magic setting.

Personally I remain supportive of both camps and seeing a beloved character go is never easy. I am not in favour of forcing permadeath on a player without first offering alternatives or a chance to flee or be ressurected with the appropriate consequences.

Retiring a character in other ways such as having them leave the region or just not pursue adventure for a quieter lifestyle for a time is a softer approach. During very dangerous events some warning of permadeath by the DM should be allowed, and even if the DM doesn't, players should be aware of what is happening around them and make their own judgement based on their character's thinking.
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Re: Adventuring - Permadeath

Postby Ostheim » Sun May 22, 2016 1:27 pm

While not a huge fan of seeing my PCs killed off until their stories are concluded in a satisfying way, it's certainly different for me coming from severs where death is way easier and way more common. Then again, almost all of these deaths stem from PVP encounters and culminations of conflict between PCs of differing agendas and factions. The other percentage comes from DM-ran events where they explicitly inform players that permadeath is a possibility, and usually these events are in aid of some crucial server-wide plot that needs must carry a risk with doing it.

PVP isn't common here, and I think it'd be strange for DMs here to suddenly start enforcing perma-deaths on events (though I wouldn't be entirely opposed to the idea, I can think of plenty who would see this as jarring). Which leaves dying to mobs on dungeon runs or idle exploration, a fate which I could never stomach for, say, Wynna. Could it be a realistic end? Sure, but unless I was so done with her story that I didn't care anymore, I'd absolutely detest seeing all the hard work and roleplay I've put into her frustrated by ill luck on a dungeon run.

Fact is, unless DMs enforce it or PVP becomes more common, it'll generally only happen when a player isn't so terribly invested anymore or gets frustrated enough to call it quits. We hold out for appropriate ends, unconsciously or not.
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Re: Adventuring - Permadeath

Postby Toros » Sun May 22, 2016 2:03 pm

I first got my taste of nwn(2) PWs on a server that had a strict 3 essence system. Each death cost an essence, and when they were gone you were dead. Combined with an uncapped e8 system, many people lost many, many characters along the way.

I also had my longest standing character be permakilled by another character (beheading on a boat) under DM supervison.

This community has been lenient about wipes and soloing not leading to player deaths, to the degree of breaking OOC, and since money was increases it is difficult to have death by not being able to afford a raise.

I think that DMs ideally will make the judgement call when an error is fatal for the player, and that should be enforced.

Death currently is financially expensive, but saving up for a greater restoration does not appear to be difficult.

If Jerek is permakilled it would be by a DM event, and has gone 15 months since his last (and only) raise. Around 5 from the last respawn, and probably another 4 from the respawn before that. Old habits die hard, and Jerek's play reflects me having learned PWs in a harsher environment.

I think everyone benefits from being able to give their character a good death, but I disagree that people should be able to choose if they die. Some people will choose not to die in immersion-breaking ways, and perhaps if a character makes decisions that would lead to an unsatisfying death a later event can be planned specifically to give them time to tie up their affairs and be given a fitting end.
Ostheim wrote:While not a huge fan of seeing my PCs killed off until their stories are concluded in a satisfying way, it's certainly different for me coming from severs where death is way easier and way more common. Then again, almost all of these deaths stem from PVP encounters and culminations of conflict between PCs of differing agendas and factions. The other percentage comes from DM-ran events where they explicitly inform players that permadeath is a possibility, and usually these events are in aid of some crucial server-wide plot that needs must carry a risk with doing it.

PVP isn't common here, and I think it'd be strange for DMs here to suddenly start enforcing perma-deaths on events (though I wouldn't be entirely opposed to the idea, I can think of plenty who would see this as jarring). Which leaves dying to mobs on dungeon runs or idle exploration, a fate which I could never stomach for, say, Wynna. Could it be a realistic end? Sure, but unless I was so done with her story that I didn't care anymore, I'd absolutely detest seeing all the hard work and roleplay I've put into her frustrated by ill luck on a dungeon run.

Fact is, unless DMs enforce it or PVP becomes more common, it'll generally only happen when a player isn't so terribly invested anymore or gets frustrated enough to call it quits. We hold out for appropriate ends, unconsciously or not.
With respect, I have never heard of a single death or party wipe on this server I think can be fairly called "ill luck." The respawn system is quite generous, and I don't believe that a few dice rolls going badly close together is what led to characters dying.

In all cases, characters were either soloing (which carries far greater risks and less rewards) or the party was in an area that either because of level or tactics they were unable to manage. There have been other significant factors, such as enemies with the same name but dramatically higher AB, but in that case it was still a death by facing too difficult content.

Player decision is what makes the difference, not luck. Failing to heal early enough, taking on too strong foes, choosing to solo is what led to death.
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Poisonous
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Re: Adventuring - Permadeath

Postby Poisonous » Sun May 22, 2016 2:34 pm

I'm not opposed to permadeath, though I would want risk rewarded more firmly over 'safe' dungeons, and some other minor adjustments made to the server.

Edit: I'll clarify--I come from a permadeath server, and more permadeath risks would probably be preferrable to me provided they're done right. They have the potential to make everything more interesting.
Last edited by Poisonous on Sun May 22, 2016 3:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ostheim
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Re: Adventuring - Permadeath

Postby Ostheim » Sun May 22, 2016 2:36 pm

Ill-luck was mostly just a catch-all for 'bad planning or bad management of the dungeon.' Luck still plays a part with rolls and the like, but yeah, I wasn't saying everything is down to luck per se.
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Kerstman
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Re: Adventuring - Permadeath

Postby Kerstman » Sun May 22, 2016 3:23 pm

I am not sure how I shall deal with the implementation of a full-on permadeath system. While I can see it allows for an even more careful approach in dungeons I will feel very discouraged to see my characters be dead after having hundreds of hours of rp invested in them. And that knowing such a system exists may make me discourage to log on on TER. That is not a threat in any way, but it is just my feeling about such systems and mechanics. One of the main reasons I chose to play here is because there is no high risk of losing my characters permanently. Some of the members of this playerbase are more hardcore than others and that is perfectly fine. I am just not like that when it comes to permadeath.

As for accidental deaths. It is not as black and white as you say it is, Toros. I've had my share of lag deaths and yes we can all be captain hindsight and say I should have positioned my character properly or I should not have dungeoned at all. But in the heat of the moment it is not as easy. Some deaths are very avoidable, but on some occassions there can well be a degree of unforseen OOC factors and that should never be ignored in my opinion. On the other hand, it should not be used as an excuse when there is -not- something like lag or horrible bumping when your character dies.
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