Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
Just Miggen wrote ...
The only thing I have against cumulative death punishments is it punishes RP builds, which in my opinion are a rare breed these days on Thain.
I'd rather push the server in a direction that rewards for RP and not powerbuilding, as has been the trend. With that said I don't think there's an easy way to reward RP that's balanced beyond "RP is it's own reward".
In an MMO I've recently tried, there's this one "punishment" system. Players can commit crimes (theft, assault, murder) against their faction in certain circumstances. Evidence is left behind (a disturbed garden plot, a bloodstain) and these can be found and reported. If the perpetrator dies later on, they rez into a courtroom, and a few other players are chosen at random and summoned to a jury to look over the cumulative crime reports, and offer a sentence from innocent up through various amounts of time in prison. After the trial, if guilty, the prisoner is sent to a prison for some number of minutes, usually less than an hour. Often just a few minutes. In the prison, there are mini-games to play, treasure to find (e.g., striped prison clothes) and spoons to find. With a spoon, a player can dig an escape tunnel from the prison. Alternatively, they can climb over the wall, with some careful jump-puzzling.
That game is donkey turds for other reasons. But, they did something I like. They took a system which was on its face a punishment, and turned it into an interesting experience. It wasn't a time out in the corner, it wa a time out in the corner with legos. Maybe we could do something like that for a death system? This is why I'm interested in the corpse-drop and ghosting systems -- they seem to be attempts to make death into more than just a "Zing! You lost!" event. If death has scripted after effects that tend to be negative, is there a way to add positives around them, so that on the whole it adds to the game, adds to roleplay potential, and doesn't just become more pressure to powerbuild?
MetalTree wrote ... HOWEVER - in DM events, and in PvP events I think it is highly important that you, as a player, take a look at your character and your situation and try to make sense of it. If you are a character that plays a caster or support, and frequently runs around DM/PvP events resurrecting every character as they fall, I will most likely not play with you and I would not DM for you. I consider that incredibly disrespectful, especially if a DM has taken care to balance creatures, or if the event or boss is meant to be overwhelming. This playstyle where players suck all of the messed up juices out of NWN and exploit its little bugs and strange system to win in PvP or DM events or just in general, really really really bugs me.
I've read and understood the premise of this thread. Following opinions are how I, personally, would go about scripting my own version of a death system on a PW that is not necessarily Thain. That out of the way, MT's quote is totally how I feel about things too. I would script my ideal death system to prevent exactly the above. I understand and appreciate that death and subsequent respawn are one of the more inveterate elements of any MMO, and that advocating/implementing severe "punishments" may scare off more people than it attracts with its immersive appeal. The general consensus here, it seems, is that too much immersion and realism detracts from the fun. Dying happens all the time in MMOs so let's not make a big deal out of it, right? Wrong!
Bearing MT's quote in mind, certain measures of restrictive scripting are IMPO warranted and justified because a too relaxed death penalty is so easily exploited and inevitably creates a sort of "laissez faire RPism" where action and consequence are almost totally taken out of the equation. IMPO and on my personal PW (if I were in fact designing one) I'd script death something like this: allow a fallen ally to be resurrected but NOT if there are enemies nearby – not only because it is unrealistic that you are resuscitating a fallen ally by means of a time and effort consuming spell while an enemy is hacking away at your back, but also because this is often borderline cheesy/disrespectful in PvP environments (not to mention if a DM went to steep lengths designing a challenging encounter and you run around rezzing each and every fallen ally in the thick of battle - yeah, I'm basically paraphrasing MetalTree). Solution? I've for instance noticed that you can't equip/unequip armor during combat. Perhaps a similar script can be applied to enforce that people can't resurrect other people during a hostile encounter?
Second, if you die and there is no-one to resurrect you, I'd script more punishing consequences to the subsequent pressing of respawn button: say, a permanent -2 to ALL stats until next restart (this penalty would be immune to restoration and greater restoration spells). This way, you can still continue adventuring but it comes with a cumulative price dependent on the number of times you've died. I'd even suggest you script this in such a way that the penalty applies even if an ally resurrects you. You can tell me this penalty would suck in a Fray event, but not necessarily so. The more duels you lose, the harder it is to amass enough points to climb to the proverbial top of the hill, which seems fair enough? EDIT: Having read Miggen's post, I can see how a cumulative death penalty may punish pure RP builds. Perhaps only enforce it if the respawn button is hit or/and make the penalty less severe?
Anyway, to succinctly summarize: death should never be equivalent to "Game Over". That's in no way fun. But at the same time it shouldn't mean "Oh let's go bash the crap out of the same thing that killed us without any mechanical drawbacks".
Registered Member #23859
Joined: 2:55:57 pm GMT 06/24/14
Posts: 409
From what I have read so far it is not so much and individuals death or maybe a few adventures on their own but dm events.
Yes it is hard for dms to keep track of exactly who or numbers and levels. Yes people get caught up in the heat of the battle.
You try to stick to the game plan but hey like in life you adjust.
The attack on Steinkreis on sunday was the first real test of Thraliths abilities as both an arcanist and archer in a combat since her release form the shard influence.
Tired and weak she was killed and raised only to be killed and raised again and thanks whoever did raise her for the thought.
I really do not see the need for any changes just maybe a bit more planning.
If you are in a tough spot try and get to safety where you could regroup yourself and rejoin.
If you see a comrade has fallen wait before rushing in to raise them, think a moment since stones and scrolls cost. Would it be prudent to raise immediately or wait until it is a bit safer for you and the ressurected are able to leave.
As I mentioned before, it may bite you died during the battle and you are missing the action but best to be out for a bit and wait until it is safe to be raised.
Registered Member #633
Joined: 3:59:33 pm GMT 10/24/05
Posts: 1173
I find it fascinating, on some level, that the general reaction to such a suggestion is first taken to be what has been described as "A Punishment".
Let that concept sink in for a second. This is a game: it's not a courtroom where players making free suggestions about what they feel would improve the general level of gameplay act as judge, jury and executioner.
Secondly, the mindset that sees anything suggested here as "punishment" is making a tacit admission about a serious flaw (perhaps unintentional, but certainly recognized) in their own thinking:
They realize that Death, even in a fantasy world, is a) something to be avoided, and b) has consequences. They just don't want to have those consequences visited upon themselves, which is about what you'd expect, human nature being what it is.
And any excuse/reason/argument/protest that can possibly be brought out to explain why THEY should not have to "suffer" the "punishment" is trotted out, tortured, twisted, misused. It's an interesting exercise in the psychology of the Modern Gamer.
I'm painting with an extremely broad brush (and aware of it), so unbunch your undies; this isn't about YOU.....even if sorta-kinda it is.
I don't make this statement as someone who has a vested interest in seeing one option or another actually come to fruition, just as an observer of human behavior. I don't know whether to laugh or vomit.
Thirdly: what this discussion has revealed is that people are definitely aware of the concept of risk/reward, and naturally, they like their rewards to be big and their risks correspondingly small, despite the fact that we're dealing with a game world in which players are continually running ever-greater risks: charging that dragon, stealing that gold, tempting fate against mind flayers. They enjoy the success, naturally.
But failure always exacts a price. Even in a world where magic makes anything possible (even the avoidance of the ultimate failure, death), but we're not allowed to talk about that because then we're "punishing" you. There's a pathology in there, somewhere, I'm certain.
But, since we're talking death systems and not the tendency of gamers to be a selfish and short-sighted lot, let's suggest a yet another alternate Death system:
How about the Stones just stop working for you after a certain level has been achieved? After that, you must depend upon your comrades to raise you, or get you to somewhere you may be raised (and make this a massive gold/XP sink). Say, after 12th level (when most PC clerics will have access to the Raise Dead spell, at least)?
Registered Member #1004
Joined: 12:54:02 pm GMT 03/16/07
Posts: 2499
Just for Funzies.
The WORST Death system I ever saw.
“Drop Everything When You Die.” It is perhaps the single-most frustrating system that I have ever had the displeasure to be part of.
For those who are not familiar with the system: Upon Death, a 'corpse' appears on the ground where you fell, that has all of your gear and supplies on it. Items in bags/containers are dumped out, so you have to pick everything up individually.
Being Raised by a cleric does not stop the corpse from appearing, but it does mean that you can start picking all your things up a lot easier. Items in bags/containers are dumped out, so you have to pick everything up individually and this becomes tediously time consuming for anyone who carries extra supplies.
If you are not raised.
You arrive on the fugue plane, naked of course, and after chatting up an NPC you get teleported back to a starting city.
This means you are now without your gear and you have to manage to get back across the maps to your corpse in order to retrieve it. Which means trying to cross through the hostiles in order to reach it, but now you don't have any supplies.
MAYBE if you had Greater Sanctuary you could reach it, but that means only spell-casters had a chance if the PC died in a hostile zone.
So you think, I'll just rebuy some gear. But without your guild keys or your house keys (also on your corpse) you won't be able to shop anywhere except the most basic places and can not just go get your spare supplies that were in storage. Not to mention you had a nice custom item that was a DM gift, and now it too is lost to the mishap.
If another PC wanders by? Hey, free loot.
If the server restarts? Hey, it's gone forever.
And at low levels? It was impossible to accomplish anything.
Needless to say, this system was the worst that I ever encountered.
Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
Dontella wrote ...
The WORST Death system I ever saw.
“Drop Everything When You Die.”
--snip/snip--
Needless to say, this system was the worst that I ever encountered.
I agree!
That's very definitely Punishment. There's a tiny bit of hook to adventure back to retrieve your things, but hugely outweighed by the severity and difficulty it imposes on that. It could be easier to delete and start over. Dropping one thing of modest value would have been a hook. I think people who set up NWN PW's like that really wanted a true permadeath system, but had to grudgingly compromise to get and retain enough players.
Maybe something the character chooses to put in their "drop on death bag". Maybe it's some fraction of their experience -- I played in a pray at your corpse to restore half the lost experience PW once, and it wasn't too bad, even though their death penalty was a lot of experience. Losing fungibles like experience or gold can still motivate just fine, and not threaten to take away specifics which are tied up into our sense of progress and identity.
There are people who can detach themselves from the belongings and progress of their characters and happily play through severe adversity, but not so many. I don't think one can design a long term game around them.
arrivederci, megido Registered Member #1403
Joined: 3:11:09 am GMT 02/26/09
Posts: 1864
I don't think calling a scripted death system "punishment" is any psychological phenomena that needs to be examined. Very simply, all of the suggestions here include minuses to stats or making it harder to be raised. In a game, especially in numerical RPGs like DnD, losing stats is punishment and gaining them is reward. Every RPG has that concept. It is undeniable that what is being discussed here is viable ways to punish PCs when they die.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing - some people are. That's why it won't be scripted on Thain, because there are too many different play styles and opinions.
Also I think a much more prudent and interesting conversation might be this - I'm interested to see if anyone will step up an explain.
If you do raise during combat or have raised in combat, especially chain rezzing during PvP or DM events - how do you justify that RP wise? This discussion is about scripted, enforced RP around death, so I'm interested in hearing how people currently look at it and RP it.
Registered Member #2049
Joined: 12:00:00 am GMT 01/01/70
Posts: 0
My vision is partly my own, partly borrowed from another servers, partly borrowed from earlier posts in this thread. And once again, I don't know much at all about scripting, so I don't know if all of these things can even be done.
My vision:
Resurrection / life stones etc
It has been said they should not be used during combat because that's unrealistic. I partly disagree. What does a medic do during combat if not everything he/she can to save lives? I'm not saying rez spamming is realistic either. I'm saying it can be made more realistic.
- Make it impossible to use resurrection / raise dead scrolls while wearing armor.
- Increase the casting time of resurrection / raise dead to several rounds (perhaps 2 or 3?)
- Make casting / reading a scroll of resurrection / raise dead always break invisibility / hide / etc (I don't know if they already do, I haven't paid attention)
- Make life stones work only when there are no enemies near.
This way the healers would actually have to be clerics (or be more vulnerable) and the chance of the spell being interrupted would be something to really consider in the thick of battle. Furthermore,
- Have the chance of resurrection / raise dead failing increase depending on how long the target has been dead
I'm thinking since we already have the system where you don't actually die before you've reached -10 HP, that could perhaps be tweaked further so that once you're at -10 and are dead, you still keep losing 1 HP per round and each point below -10 means 10 pp higher chance of the spell / stone failing (your HP couldn't be reduced lower than to -10 even if you suffer massive damage). So once you've died, there's still a chance to bring you back up but it will be increasingly difficult, especially if casting the spell takes several rounds too. And this is where I'd make an exception with the life stones. They would ignore the chance of failure (outside the chance that's already scripted in them), but as said before they wouldn't work during combat at all. Also, this brings me to...
Dying / being raised / respawning
- If you die and are raised by a spell, you come back normally but are blind / deaf / slowed for X rounds, just like as if your resting was interrupted.
- If you die and respawn or are raised with a life stone, the same deal as above but you'll also have -1 to all abilities until next restart. This penalty can't be removed with restoration etc. and if you die again, the effect is cumulative.
- If you die, you don't drop gold, you lose gold. No one can pick it up and return it to you or use it themselves, it's just gone.
So there. I'm pretty sure there are many flaws in this, I mostly just made it up from ideas swirling in my head as I typed. [edit] Forgot to mention: Costs of scrolls / stones would be one thing to consider and the durations, failure chcances etc. should naturally also be thought over with care.
Registered Member #2049
Joined: 12:00:00 am GMT 01/01/70
Posts: 0
MetalTree wrote ...
If you do raise during combat or have raised in combat, especially chain rezzing during PvP or DM events - how do you justify that RP wise? This discussion is about scripted, enforced RP around death, so I'm interested in hearing how people currently look at it and RP it.
I have rezzed people during combat many times, not sure if I've done it during PvP or DM events. I never thought it had to be justified, since the server has stones and scrolls to do that, but I do see how it can be various levels of cheesy. RPwise, if there is a way to return the best warrior of the group to life so that the rest of us don't die too, I'd go for it.
BTW, life stones used to cost more and they returned you to life with 1 hp, but now they cost less and you come back with half your HP. To me that's clearly encouraging people to use them during combat.
[ The Island of Thain ]
Discussion of Death Ideas
