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Old 10-08-2007, 03:42 PM   #36
Jazuela
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: New England
Posts: 849
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Re: How many muds have permadeath?

Well then sure, I guess that makes me an elitist. And if I'm an elitist, what does that make you? Someone lacking standards? If that's how you want to see things, then I'm fine with it. So from an elitist's point of view, I'll chime in.

Let's toss realism out the window, since there ain't no such thing in a fantasy game. But, let's use that lovely crunchy term "suspension of disbelief" instead, since it's much more fitting.

The reason I play fantasy roleplaying text-based games, instead of X-Box, is several-fold. One, I like to read, and I'm not too big on graphics. Second, I want to feel as though I'm participating in a storyline while it's occurring. I don't need to be the hero, but I do need to be involved. If I'm not going to be involved, I might as well just read a book (which I do often).

So what is it about being involved? Well in a permanent death game, there's a tangable risk to my character. It is an IC risk - not an arbitrary OOC risk. Penalty points aren't IC. They're an OOC device to punish the PLAYER for having the nerve to allow their character to die. Loss of skill - again. An OOC device to set the player back - because he can just spend another 5 hours getting those skills right back and he'll be exactly where he left off before his character died.

So there's that spark of risk to the -character- that you can't get with ooc penalty devices, that attracts me to permanent death. There's also the matter of assassinations. In a game where death is permissible and coded at all, it makes sense that intentional murder would occur from time to time. But what good is it, to murder Joe Noble, if Joe Noble will just be alive again in an hour? What's the point of killing him in the first place, if he can't actually DIE?

Resurrection means - they ain't really dead. It's a pretend death, that prevents that suspension of disbelief. I don't need or want reality in my fantasy games. But I do want my experience to be believable. And - being dead, using up a few deeds, or exp points, and being alive after solving the same puzzle I solved twenty times in the last year of playing the game, is not believable. After the first twenty times of my character dying and coming back to life again, I stop feeling that "spark" that comes with a risk of death. There exists no risk of death, if death is a temporary setback to a character's immortal existence.

So for my elitist self, I'll happily stick with elitists RPGs, and let all you little people with lack of standards enjoy your happy joyful bouncy giggly smoochy empath-resurrecting games.
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