Well, that depends. Are you telling me that I'm LESS of a roleplayer because I enjoy a different type of game from you? I don't think I've ever seen or heard anything like that from you even if you play on an RPI until this last post. I, however, am not telling you that you are less than me for liking permadeath; you just obviously like playing something DIFFERENT than I do. I am making no judgments on you at all for the type of game you choose to play. ALL RPI players are not elitist, but most elitist roleplayers claim to play RPIs as opposed to RP<insertsneeringcommenthere>.
Someone I consider an extremely excellent roleplayer and a good friend happens to play Armageddon. She is neither elitist nor does she claim that people who play a game that does not deign to call itself an RPI are somehow lacking standards or less than she. In fact, we've played at least two games together over a period of 6-7 years. Now she builds for one game, and I build for two others.
As I said in my previous post, I can see TONS of reasons to play a permadeath game. Heck, tons of old school games have "permadeath" of type in order to add to the CHALLENGE of the game.
I have to say, though, I don't think permadeath or any kind of death is any more OOC than any other arbitrary punishment upon "death". Instead of losing some random stats, losing some gear, losing some xp, losing some whatever it it is they decide you lose, you lose a character and just roll up a new one. It's still all game mechanics no matter how you want to sugar coat it, and it's all a matter of degrees. Face it, games are inherently OOC due to the nature of their construct, but the RP comes in being able to operate within the story, add to the story, tell the story, and get others involved. Loftily decreeing that YOUR choices in how to do this is SO MUCH better than anyone else's is just plain silly. People make their choices for so many different reason. People find so many different things that appeal to them. That's the beauty of having a choice, and that's the beauty to having so many games to choose from.
I understand where you're coming from. As I said, permadeath appeals to me from time to time, but I enjoy a lot of things about gaming in general. Even more than gaming, I enjoy building, writing, and watching stories unfold. As to what is the point of killing someone in the first place if he can't die, well that depends on the game you're playing and whether or not you play with the object of killing someone. I rarely play anything involving assassinations because that type of character (one that would assassinate someone else) is not one that is very interesting to me, and politics interest me way more than PK. Thus, the PK aspects of roleplaying games interest me very little. On the other hand, I live for PvP in games that are designed around PvP and even some that are not. The joy of killing someone who can come back stems from testing my skills as a player against someone else's skills as a player. They are unpredictable, unlike NPCs, and it's even better if they can go "better" themselves and come back for a grudge match. Also, if I'm the one to lose, I want to try different tactics and see if I can come back to win. Things like this can spawn so many offshoots when allies and extra enemies get involved. Again, it's just more to the story. In too many permadeath games, you don't get another chance. It's pretty awesome when you DO get away, though, I'll give you that, because you KNOW you've literally SAVED your character. YAY!
In some other games, PvP is part of another grind. You kill for whatever points, and you level up in a different way. Doesn't thrill me much, and at that point, you're glad you're able to kill someone over and over just so you can progress. So to answer your question, I can think of TONS of reasons to kill someone who would come back.
I think I'll just remain someone with a lack of standards if, in order to be uber-roleplayer-who-loves-permadeath-as-the-only-system-ever-and-everyone-else-sucks-and-aren't-really-roleplaying (wow, what a mouthful), I have to spend a lot of time belittling everyone else's choices and ban myself from un-elite, lowly games. It allows me to experience a ton of stories, roleplayers, people, and excellent games that I might otherwise have to boycott. I call it open-mindedness and giving people props for their choices.
I might operate from a faulty dictionary, though.