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Throttle · 10-06-2007, 10:52 AM

How many muds have permadeath? That's pretty difficult to find out, but not a whole lot. To me, there are two kinds of permadeath:

1) True permadeath: if you die in any way, you're gone. Pretty rare, only the RPI muds and a few others have this. The purpose of this style of death is to make the game as realistic as possible, and to make sure that the players truly do as their character would if they were a living, breathing individual. It's easy to take nonsensical risks if dying means you have to spend an hour getting the xp points back; if it means a terminate loss of said character, the player is much more likely to stay in-character and act realistically.

2) "Soft" permadeath: it's possible to permanently lose the character, but it's not as simple as "death = bye". It might let you die a certain amount of times before the character finally ends, or you might need to die without a specific item on you, or in a particular way. Muds that have systems like these are often roleplay-enforced without taking the step to become a true RPI mud.

What does permadeath do for a game? As I mentioned above, it promotes realistic roleplay. Permadeath generally does not belong on a mud where roleplay is not the focus, although it could be there as a game difficulty similar to Diablo2's "hardcore" mode. Actions and consequences become a lot more real and interesting when a mistake could cost you months or years of work, and it makes it so much easier for the player to feel the real fear of death. Most purist roleplayers will not consider a game without permadeath to be a true roleplaying game.

10-06-2007, 10:52 AM	#3
Throttle Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 31	Re: How many muds have permadeath? How many muds have permadeath? That's pretty difficult to find out, but not a whole lot. To me, there are two kinds of permadeath: 1) True permadeath: if you die in any way, you're gone. Pretty rare, only the RPI muds and a few others have this. The purpose of this style of death is to make the game as realistic as possible, and to make sure that the players truly do as their character would if they were a living, breathing individual. It's easy to take nonsensical risks if dying means you have to spend an hour getting the xp points back; if it means a terminate loss of said character, the player is much more likely to stay in-character and act realistically. 2) "Soft" permadeath: it's possible to permanently lose the character, but it's not as simple as "death = bye". It might let you die a certain amount of times before the character finally ends, or you might need to die without a specific item on you, or in a particular way. Muds that have systems like these are often roleplay-enforced without taking the step to become a true RPI mud. What does permadeath do for a game? As I mentioned above, it promotes realistic roleplay. Permadeath generally does not belong on a mud where roleplay is not the focus, although it could be there as a game difficulty similar to Diablo2's "hardcore" mode. Actions and consequences become a lot more real and interesting when a mistake could cost you months or years of work, and it makes it so much easier for the player to feel the real fear of death. Most purist roleplayers will not consider a game without permadeath to be a true roleplaying game.