[Milawe]

Yes, I can understand that completely. Permadeath creates a certain type of gameplay that attracts certain players. Why they are attracted is completely understandable. At the same time, permadeath can turn off certain players and detracts from what that person may be trying to roleplay. It neither inherently promotes more roleplaying nor does it inherently detract from roleplaying. It is just a game design mechanic that appeals to several people.

Diablo II had a permadeath mode called Hardcore where people would compete heavily to outlast everyone else while trying to progress as far as they could as fast as they could. There was definitely a more tense and "on the edge" feel to playing on the Hardcore server. You couldn't really just level in peace because you got one death, and you were done with that character. Playing involved way more running away and screaming at your computer than on the regular servers.

This is what I feel that many hardcore proponents of permadeath in muds are describing, and it's something I understand completely since I did mess around a lot on Hardcore mode. It's just something that I don't necessarily like when I roleplay because I feel that it doesn't allow me to get involved with my character in the manner which I enjoy. I actually don't feel like my decisions matter as much because, likely, I'm going to get slaughtered by another player who just decided my character was a waste of space. And because mechanics still exist, I pretty much have no chance as a new player if someone takes offense to my existence immmediately.

So, the OP asked how permadeath affects players on muds, and I think we can see that it affects players in vastly different ways. Permadeath on a PK, unenforced RP mud would be thoroughly enjoyable to me whereas permadeath on an RP-enforced mud would not be for the reasons I've listed.

Yes, it can be frustrating, but it's easily remedied for people who find it furstrating. We simply don't play permadeath muds, or we play a good permadeath mud and spend less time than we normally would building our character background.

There's definitely enough muds out there to appeal to all sorts of different people, and there's a lot of people out there who enjoy both permadeath and pendeath. I simply can't buy the idea that one is inherently better than the other for RP purposes, but it can be better for a specific roleplayer looking for a specific way to play.