No Raise Dead. No Resurrection. No True Resurrection. No reincarnation.

You die, your PC goes to Fugue Plane, permenantly saved to that location. If you arrange to meet a DM ahead of time, you may log into that dead PC...and have the DM delete him/her permenantly from the archive...and consequently receive a brand new PC, given enough xp to take him/her to five levels below the dead PC. Then given a level-appropriate amount of gold, transferred to an ooc shop to spend it on, and poofs right back into the server. This allows people to come in with 'higher lvl arrival', as was mentioned in the blind rp thread. This is also so you don't scream/tear your hair out when your lvl 30 PC suffers lag death...

Sure some people will abuse this to rebuild. Kill your own pc off permenantly, then make a new one of your choice. But you have to give up 5 lvls...so thats something at least.

Good consequences (I anticipate): Adventuring is scary. Meaningful. DM quests are scar(ier) and (more) meaningful. Simply walking from town A to town B is scarier/meaningful.

PvP is crazy scary. Best part - no more endless squabbles. If you're a hit man...your job will have ten times more impact, because who you kill...stays dead. But also, your life is ten times more dangerous...for if you get killed, you stay dead. Staying out of trouble/avoiding conflict is no longer just a flavor of rp, but has serious consequences...and will feel so much different than palying a more dangerous character, like a hit man, or a Red Wizard, or a paladin/etc.


Bad Consequences (I anticipate): Players getting VERY upset at other players from PvP. It already happens on Amia, where death (like every other popular rp server, I emphasize popular) has no consequence. Imagine the arguements/disputes if it did have consequences?

Lag is much scarier.


------------------------------------------------------------

Has this been done before? Perma death, but with allowing your next PC to come in X lvls lower so you dont have to start -all- over? I imagine it could be more popular than the typical perma-death server if it had this kind of mechanism.

On a more generic note: Other ways to make death more meaningful? Time limits before the PC can come back on? Etc? Wish death had more meaning...huge respect to players who do permakill their own PCs from time to time, so we have at least some sense of death in the air...some sense of actual mortality.

1. If Perma death was ever introduced, I doubt it'd come with a "Your next PC will be 5 levels lower than the dead one". It makes absolutely NO IC sense for a new PC to get free gold, items and levels when they arrive on Amia.

2. This won't ever be introduced, afaik. For a multitude of reasons.

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Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

It can easily make IC sense...in fact on Amia, it would 'especially' make sense...its of course, assumed that the player in question has some kind of history behind the incoming PC...how could it not make IC sense? its just a matter of including more adventures/etc in a bio.

as per never allowing perma-death on Amia, i admit its not likely...as it seems to kill the population on most servers. most people dont like losing a char involuntary that they're invested in.



but what about other ways to make death more meaningful?

It would be an interesting concept, I fear balancing it to be fair though would be next to impossible.

HOWEVER, sometimes, a PC's permanent death can generate a fair amount of RP and.. depending on the PC create a wide variety of reactions.

Enforced Permadeath, or Rewarded Permadeath are both interesting concepts, making them fair however barring specific DM circumstances.. different matter.

Powerful plot device, death. Especially in a world where usually you can come back from it. But sometimes... they don't.

Not sure if I'd want to subsidize it though, it may reduce its value.

Thats just my two coppers worth though.

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Dwagin [Duh-wa-GIN] N. - 1a. Small and cute thingum, particularly fond of four legged scaled creatures of the metalic and chromatic varieties.

-Extraordinarily ordinary in the mostest of ways.

forced Perma-death is a bad idea unless you want PVP powerbuilds to be a needed thing.

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

Oh boy! This will be great. *gets popcorn*

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Characters:
Hunar Iroff, The red-bearded, grumpy dwarf with a bastard sword. Chair of Military Issues
Daren Sten, High Inquisitor of the Eternal Order of Kelemvor on Amia

I just point to Mr Mago and Darthyon who alone took on 5 powerbuilds and won.

Now imagine the next fight they are 5 level lower. Oops!

Not to forget, what do you do with characters that are not even level 5?

Kill them completely?

I'd agree with Grave, it won't happen.

"There are those kind of roleplayers who sigh and cross 'Snorry the second' off the character sheet of their dead dwarf and write 'Snorry the 3rd.' on it."

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"Most assume that all the followers of Lathander are great morning people. They're very wrong."
"I think we are the only group where AD&D stands for Attention Deficit Disorder."

I don't want to encourage reckless IC behaviour with a reward of getting a new PC when your old PC is killed off.

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Current plots:
DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR

Prod me for development-related stuff.

Allow me to take this post in part.




So not DnD? Yeah, ok, how do you explain this in Amia?

No.



This is the worst idea I've seen this week. That was the politest way I could answer to this part. Bar none, the single worst idea. I'm sorry. It doesn't have a shred of redemption to it. It's OOCly abusable, IClly abusable, a waste of DM's time when people die(and people die A LOT), and you would never, ever, ever see a character make any sort of meaningful impact on the server because they would die to a freak one. People would huddle around no PvP areas and roleplay on the server would grind to an incredible halt. Not to mention would would probably LOSE ALL OUR PLAYERS.



Good consequences: None. One unlucky 1 and it's all over. There is "Scary" and then there's "retarded luck ends 5 years of character roleplay on the one time you decide to leave the chicken coup and dare venture off the beaten path."



No. This is BAD. BAD. BAD BAD BAD. A level 30 sorceror is capable of SINGLE HANDEDLY killing aA DOZEN OTHER LEVEL 30's. And that's just by fucking facerolling with 3 spells. God forbid they actually use a quarter of their brain. I've seen 2 30 sorcs kill 15 people AND HAVE SPELLS LEFT OVER.



Bad consequences: The server dies because people go to a place where they're not going to be afraid to lose years of RP to a freak accident or some random jerkoff griefing. Other bad consequnces: the DMs have to waste a shit ton of time effectively freshly rebuilding a character every time they die. Let me toss you some statistics here. Today on Amia alone, 15 unique PCs died. Boom. Gone. This week? Eighty seven. Not 87 deaths. 87 UNIQUE PLAYER CHARACTER DEATHS.

That isn't "Scary". That's "Apocalypse, shut down the server". Let's assume for a moment thta everyone DOESN'T leave. That's 87 characters the DMs have to manually rebuild quickly (or risk the player getting fed u and leaving due t o being dead), give gear, give XP. 87 characters pre levelled, but existing with no real history on Amia. 87 character who probably had a large impact (Here's some names of the recently deceased: Valkin Mulgin, Nevaeh Tarvencia, Vyashir Indrire, Octavia, Ryan Banesman, Seeamros, Mathan Wayne, several Bucktooth clan, Voronwer, Justin Fairfax, Claire Volan, Kaithan Cylverand, Mentaki, Samreal, Snobbles, Phylanxrian, Jayl, Nicha Willows), quietly erased from existence, no pomp, no circumstance, no furthering of the server story. If you recognize those names, they no longer exist and never will again. And why? Maybe it was menainigful PvP. Maybe it was just a stupid lag spike.

I hope you get at what I'm saying here.



The fact that you list this yet find it an acceptable consequence tells me that you should never make a design decision in an online server in any game. The effects of lag should be minimized at every turn, not exacerbated into something that destroys the server story, and dramatic tension, with a server crash, or, in the most ationy senses, victory and defeat should never rest on the person who lagged the least, or managed to crash out before a spell killed him or just plain his internet cutting out or whatever.



Maybe it has been done before. You know what a common thread would be, with all the server who have?

They have no players anymore. There's a reason every active server in existence doesn't do this, or if they do offer permadeath, they typically function off a "lives" system, or have some form of ressurection available simply because lag happens, stupid shit happens, griefers happen, the world happens and this is a game.

~~~~



The one line worth actually responding to. You want to know the answer to this? It's easy.

Stop fucking killing each other. When you stop flinging around murder because someone shut a door in your face (true facts: I saw this yesterday.), then death becomes dramatic. There is a certain sect of PCs who does not kill at the slightest provocation, and so when death enters the equation, you know it has gone south. And they do it with the knowledge that the person will probably come back, yes, but that death is plotted and carried out with MEANING, because it was the final solution, the last escalation when nothing else would work. And when they die? Because they're involved in these life and death situations so rarely, thn their own death becomes more meaningful, both to themselves and to the person who did it. People lament the lack of rivalries? People lament how nemeses never work? Here's how it works: You don't bloody kill each other first off. I'm dead serious. This is the answer, but as always, it requires a sweeping change in player culture to execute, and as long as people xist that say "Most people suck at RPing this way, jsut ignore them and look for the good ones", as long as people exist that aren't willing to give and set an example without being given to first, as long as people are ging to perpetuate the cycle simply because "they do it too, so why not?" then nothing is ever going to change, and I'll just have to sit and watch people make derogatory comments about other players and areas in party chat.

Make death the last solution and not the first response and everything will become more meaningful in turn. But as long as people do what they do... welp.

Welp.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Might be worth it if you'd simply reward the people who perma their PCs with the 5 levels lower thing. BUT, on the condition they send in a full character bio that would need to be scrutinized, and accepted by the DMs before hand.

That way maybe people would be somewhat more agreeable towards perma-death instead of just coming back like nothing happened.



I'm curious, do you mean a faction that enforces such rules or a group of players?

There's people who are very attached to their PCs and then there's people who level up to 30 and RP a little, then get bored with the character, possibly contributing very little to the general storyline of the server. The latter people are the folks who'd get all the benefit of a system like you suggest. It doesn't matter if they make a nice request with a story for the character. If the character isn't actually played but for a few weeks it doesn't contribute.

No, I don't want to reward disposable characters. I want to reward strong storylines with continuity.

I've a lot more to say about this sort of permadeath proposals, but I'm not going to bother. Let's say that implementing something like the original proposal would mean basically redoing the entire modules from scratch, because they've been balanced very differently. It'd mean doing vault wipes, too. Else it'd be a halfassed job that only brought the worst bits of the proposal to the server and none of the good bits (there are good bits, yes, but they require entirely different gameworld than Amia is!!).

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Current plots:
DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR

Prod me for development-related stuff.

Would they go through all the trouble of making a detailed request for a PC only to play it for a few weeks tho?

Trust me on this: people would.

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Current plots:
DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR

Prod me for development-related stuff.

A group of players that I have come to enjoy watching as a DM.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Ah, pity, would have been nice if there was a faction that enforced that sort of thing.

There is one. They're called "Salandrans". You don't kill unless you absolutely, positively have -no- other choice. Sometimes you don't, even then. (This is assuming a good solid hamstringing won't stop the issue at hand.)

And holy shit, Tormak, breathe. That's a hellacious rant.

Lastly, hell no. No server with forced perma will -ever- be one I play on. Arelith's Mark of Destiny is good. You get bonus XP. Because once you die ten times, that's it. The char is vault-wiped. It has a drawback, it has a perk. Mmmm, balance. And best of all, you can choose or refuse it. (Unless you are a naughty monkey and the dms force one on you.) If there was a way to do that here, I'd be all for it.

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Aly'dra Zau'ana: Priestessish Of Eilistraee
Danika Nefzen: Druid of the Earthmother
Delia Am'Anodel: Paladin of Torm

I liked Tormak's rant. I don't need to make a long post myself now.

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Current plots:
DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR

Prod me for development-related stuff.

In my opinion, permanent character death only really works when conditions are really against the players. In a module where it's a struggle to stay alive never mind gain a level and where you actually mourn the loss of those characters and remember the great things they have accomplished in such a short time, there is definitely a place for it.

Even in that instance though, where your CD key is good only for one shot (until the adventure ends that is) someone could trivialise character death if they have more money than sense.

This is one of those things where, unless you show us that it works, there's not much of an argument for and a lot against.

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The Peacock wrote:

[GreatPigeon] is better than me.

*Cries* He mentioned my underling but not Calin T.T

Anywhom, my take on Amia is that it should be level 20 max, no epics. But that's not viable, and neither is this solution. Not unless your willing to do all the work yourself. Cause I ain't, and I doubt the DM, Dev's, Designers and everyone else who contributes to Amia's growth are likely interested in creating a brand new server/module to implement just this.

Which then comes round about to the simple answer. Make your own server, cause that's effectively what your asking to be done.

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I keels u with my axe!

"Do ye know where the Holy-Flamin' Frost-brand Gronk-slayin' Vorpal Hammer o' woundin' an' returnin' an' Shootin'-Lightnin'-out-yer-bum is?"

*enters sarcastic mode*I got this great idea, you get to have raises and resurrections. and when you or a dm choose to make your character perma dead you get to start with a level 2 character with a hundred gold pieces some very basic equipment and three potions of cure light wounds. Sounds good? *leaves sarcastic mode* On a more serious tone, what they said *points up*

I actually agree with Tormak here with the death thing. If you're killing someone every day, then of course the "meaningfulness" of death(which is a bit presumptuous to assume it has meaning beyond itself) starts to dull.

More than one of my characters actively avoids killing people. When pressured or required to PvP, even if they've "killed", they sometimes revive and emote *thoroughly unconscious*. I mean put yourself in your characters shoes a moment. LG, LE, CG, even CE. You first and final reaction to an adverse situation isn't always "kill it the [removed] dead." Perhaps beat it shitless, brutalize it, push it aside, or put into a coma. But someone cuts you off on the highway, all but the most insane don't flip out a bowie knife and go Ranbo on the son'bitch.

And even if it does come to blows. The person loosing. Have you ever thought of trying to run away? Just because you enter PvP doesn't mean your character resolves "Okay, this bastard stole the last doughnut. Imma fight him. But oh, he's actually killing me. Well, I guess I'll just stand my ground and die here." I've been fortunate enough to be in PvP where RP has come into the mix and either one or both parties have relented before someone died. Not waited util "Dervish McKnickles killed Alabaster Sunshine" shows up in the chatlog, but when both realized they were "Badly Injured" and fucking bleeding out in the middle of a dirt road in the backwoods of nowhere.

There is a line to be walked between Permadeath solutions that make people feel like they are playing doll house or worse, SIMS, and Comic Book deaths. And I believe for the most part the server's walking it just fine. The way you encourage death to be more X, is that you start roleplaying it yourself, and with that roleplay, convincing players that your story has become richer for it.

And yes, a single death per player on a multiplayer server is just ludicrous. Forgoing that we play in a magical setting, not even considering the fact that we get by with tougher concepts than death being molded around, there is this: in our gameworld, miracles/flukes happen 1/20th of the time. Fuck realism of death or any fickle notion of "reality" when we must accept that out of 20 people who are at the center of a atomic blast, one of them will likely survive, because he rolled a 20 on fortitude.

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Tormak said it all.

Your suggestion would only encourage powerbuilding, which is already prevalent anyway, but this is supposed to be a RP server.
The perma-death would have to be ok'd by the victim's player in any case.

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If we implemented this, I know the first factions that would be wiped out... Har har, would be awesome.

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Characters:
Hunar Iroff, The red-bearded, grumpy dwarf with a bastard sword. Chair of Military Issues
Daren Sten, High Inquisitor of the Eternal Order of Kelemvor on Amia

They are more IC pacifists, I was thinking more along the lines of a faction that openly declares and enforces a sort of no PK without heavy cause/permission rule.
Would ideally use dice rolls to deal with outbursts and the like in a sort of : *Backhands "PC" across the face!*
Rather then : "Graaah! You make me mad! I stab your heart!" and going full PvP on them.



You are an evil, evil man..


Would also like to point out, that not all PvP ends in death for the PC even tho the mechanics may treat it that way.
RP wise the character could just be unconscious, or horribly beaten with broken bones, ect. A perma-death system would have trouble telling the difference I think.

I think you can choose the degree of damage done in PvP, isn't there a menu with choices?

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You can pick the type of PvP, but they all end with a "death". Least I think so, haven't PvPed in awhile.

Quick to support harsher penalties, but this is definitely the wrong way to go about it. And as it has been mentioned above, I also do not feel this change would actually improve roleplay, but the contrary. While all harsher death suggestions will likely result in people pimping their builds even more, this suggestion takes the crown for it. I am sure there are far better ways to make death more meaningful.

I'm not going to lock this. I'm going to move it out of my forum.

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I play: Gage le Gris
Socially and recently politically Inept Knight of Xymor

In short the answer ought to be: There are plenty of servers that have the permadeath policy. Amia is not one of them.

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UCE THIS, YOU COW.

Well, my short answer is: let's not fuck with the things that make Amia so popular, at least too much. U-turn in a critical balance matter after 6 years of building module and characters is a bit too much.

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Current plots:
DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR

Prod me for development-related stuff.

Yeeeaaah, I read this last night and couldn't think of anything nicer to say than, "This is probably the worst idea I've seen in a very long time." So I didn't say anything.

And now you said it, bitch.

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UCE THIS, YOU COW.

Ooops.

I'm rather sure the Kellies would be ruthlessly massacred and dismembered and burnt. No mistakes there.

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Characters:
Hunar Iroff, The red-bearded, grumpy dwarf with a bastard sword. Chair of Military Issues
Daren Sten, High Inquisitor of the Eternal Order of Kelemvor on Amia

Best. Post. Ever.

Seriously, thats most awesome idea I have seen yet. I'd love to see that.

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I hated hipsters before hating them was cool.

Only after they do in the Banites I think..

Come to think of it, didn't Kelemvor go through something similar? With all the good guys not afraid of death and all the baddies hiding in their holes?

Amia would turn into the "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny".

Chuck Norris where?

That is that law knight geek. Monolith are the power rangers. <.<

Banites = Godzilla then?

I've been saying like, forever now that people should stop treating death as a death and consider it a knockout instead. If it was up to me we'd enforce this with mechanics, but leave death as the ultimate option.

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Current plots:
DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR

Prod me for development-related stuff.

Most of the time it comes up in the combat log as *knocked down* afaik.

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Banites = Elementary school bullies

War Knights = Samurai Pizza Cats

Ralten's Band = River Bottom Nightmare Band

I had to youtube that, and it seems strangely appropriate.

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Whaaaat? Highschool bullies at the LEAST.

After seeing the Samura Pizza Cats I want to see Calin jig to it.

What is this?!

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Characters:
Hunar Iroff, The red-bearded, grumpy dwarf with a bastard sword. Chair of Military Issues
Daren Sten, High Inquisitor of the Eternal Order of Kelemvor on Amia

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'Ze Cock! Ze Cock ist shtill aut der!! Kapitulation feiern - NEIN DANKE!'