quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

Ahh, geez, nicba, you missed my point entirely! Environmental realism doesn''t mean you can''t play a mage! If that is what''s realistic within the rules of the setting, it can and should happen! My point is: wouldn''t being a mage be so much more fun if people reacted in TERROR every time you hurled a firebolt?

I was just trying to see wath you really meant by that "realism" idea. You want "consequences" and you want the game to "react" to the players actions. But I don''t think that necersarily has much to do with realism (or even environmental realism). It has to do with making the game world less static and making the creatures in it react more intelligent and in accordance with the "rules" of the setting.

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As for the death thing, it serves primarily to dicourage combat for combat''s sake. Perhaps cowardly weaklings will no loger become kings and knights, because they won''t want to take the risk, but if un-needed combat becomes scares, so will the threat of death. Follow?

Yeah, I see what you mean. But I don''t think it will work that way. Occasional fear or terror can be a good effect and quite fun to play. But if one has to fight against fear of loosing everytime you want to take some kind of action, or if admins go around as evil viziers stirring up trouble, then I think you end up with fear turning into frustration and driving people away from the game.

Regards

nicba

Hmmm... Perhaps we should dispatch this landfish fellow. He seems to be quite the fiend! Just need a time and place...

I think I''m missing part of my explaination... That''s the major problem with so many new ideas is that you never know if you''ve forgotten something, or you''re repeating yourself, or both!

Ok, an absolute death system needs advancement to function properly. Without advancement, death would not be a loss to the player, just a change of character. No good. We need to cut the murder-factor down more than that. But a traditional advancement system is TOO MUCh advancement. If combat is gritty and even the best of all characters is at risk in a fight, you might lose your 300th level character to a first leveler. No good.

So we need an intermediary kind of advancement system. Something where it takes a character a couple of days, at least to get rolling... but not much more than that. It should curve off after that... skill attrition might work. Any ideas? Essentially I''m looking for a system that rewards frequency of play, or intelligent play over cumulative hours (as the traditional EXP system does.)

The player''s loss in losing a character should never be an issue of stats gained. They should miss the character itself, the friends and connections, the experiences. These things should take such precedence in the game that any lost stats seem insignifigant by comparison. Does that change things at all?

You put ''em here!

quote: Original post by OberonZ

What I suggest is different. When you die, you die. You body is actually interred in a cemitary (or whatever). You start a new character. However, this being a fantasy/sci-fi world and all, there should be a potion/ritual/artifact that would resurrect a previously killed character. This has alot of potential since a ritual could be a quest in itself. Also the ritual might require for X number of friends to give of their essesnce (HP or whatever) in order for the ritual to succeed. That adds a cool roleplaying element.

While I wouldn''t be entirely against someone implementing this in their own game, I wouldn''t put it in mine. Why? Because I like to emphasize realism (kinda), but more because this deadens the impact of final death, it gives the player a "way out". It changes the balance only a little, but enough to take most of the fear out of dying, hence leaving combat as a viable option for most problems. Guess what? It''s not.

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Another way to approach death is the way some Live Action Role Playing Games do it. One in particular, Legends, deals with death like so: When the character is created, based on the race and other factors, a certain number of "lives" is associated to the him or her.

Again, deadens the impact. Hence it undermines the entire system If you don''t pull any punches around death, fewer people will jump at combat for no reason. The second you make compromises, you return to a standard grab-bag MMORPG. Not that there''s anything wrong with that...

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I''d like to say something about repeated final deaths. A player creates a character and dies. He creates another character and dies, again, again, again, and again. Everytime they start over it''s the same ol'' thing: Create character, try to get basic equipment, try to get loot, die. Crap. That can get very very monotonous.

If death is truly something to fear, and combat occurs as rarely as I would like, then death would occur VERY rarely. Like, a given player of this game for a year MAY have died maybe once. Yes, you heard me. Of course, absolute death cannot be the only thing that will bring about that little combat... a variety of other techniques have been mentioned on this board. I would use all of them to the extent that they are beneficial.

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And lastly (yes I promise, this is the last thing), I think that the way a player plays should effect their future character. For example. Oorg the Barbarian is good natured, but not too bright. He is quick to anger and has been on the winning end of many a battle (say, level 20). However, Oorg has always been a pretty good guy: He played out on the "good quests", he gave lower level characers gits of items, etc. Now Oorg has met his match and die. The player starting a new character should have these factors alter the character creation process. Maybe he starts at level 2, maybe NPCs generally have a good disposition toward him (until they proove other wise), etc.

As we discussed earlier, a traditional leveling system would make this kind of game infuriating to play. I would have no intention of implementing one (not that I would anyway, right?) What we need is something that gives you almost instant gratification... you should only be as good as you are playing at the time, at intervals of like a week... Any ideas?

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Anyway, those are some more ideas to keep the fire burning :

Thank you for the suggestions, as they have lead me to the following conclusion...

I really am thinking of a VERY different game than anyone has ever played. Might be because I have absolutely ZERO interest in playing MMORPGs as they are now. (What did that other fellow call it? Mighty MORphin'' Power Gamers?) They seem so contrived but the technology has such potential!

The absolute death solutio is a microscopic cog in my catastrophic plan. Remove any of the elements that discourage combat and it WILL fall apart. There''s no two ways about it. So here''s the balance in a nutshell:
1. Death is Final. No going back. (''cept freak accident moderation.)

2. Combat is risky. Even old players can bite it.

3. Advancement is (somewhat)instant gratifiaction. Everyone is basically equal, but you carve out your worth based on how you spend your time. (still looking for suggestions)

4. There MUST be other ways to do everything. Combat should be the last refuge of the desperate, not worth doing unless you have no choice.

5. No (expendable) monsters. If you have no expendable species there will be no reason to constantly place your life on the line. No monsters at all might be an even better path.

6. No leaping treasures. Money doesn''t leap out to be taken. If you were to kill someone (insanely risky) you would also have to search the body. And fast.

7. You must have something IN CHARACTER for the players to desire. Power, women, fame, stability, revenge. Just so you understand, take another look at #4.

8. It must be super annoying to start from scratch if you are trying to build a supercharacter and kill someone/thing. It must be not annoying at all for people to start over if they simply want to roleplay.

9. If combat weren''t unattractive enough already, wound heal in realtime. So yes, if you do manage to kill the man who had his way with your sister and got a broken arm in the process, be prepared to deal with a broken arm for at least two-three weeks.

10. On a related note, no potions. This would make combat less risky. If you really MUST have potions, they should be fantastically rare... and just you try to whip it out in the middle of combat and drink it. =)

11. The last ten items hopefully decreased the worth of combat so much that when it happens it''s worth going to see! Hence, character death will become news, something people actually care about. Maybe once. In a year. Maybe.(actually, the total deaths for an entire system might run in the double digits if there''s no war on.)

You can undoubtably find more, but now I have these out on the table. I bet you''re thinking, this doesn''t even sound like an RPG! No monsters?! But, given the infrequency of death and the high likelyhood of political intrigue and personal plot development... the result will actually be very playable, I hope.

Now before you all jump on this, please stop comparing it to the MMORPGs that you have played. Please understand that if you liked those, you might not like this. Please understand that my PARENTS are far more likely to enjoy this kind of game than your average EQ player. But also understand that there IS a balance here, if you don''t make any consessions to cliche or tradition.

Wow, that''s long. Thanks, if you read it all.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

Ok, an absolute death system needs advancement to function properly. Without advancement, death would not be a loss to the player, just a change of character. No good. We need to cut the murder-factor down more than that. But a traditional advancement system is TOO MUCh advancement. If combat is gritty and even the best of all characters is at risk in a fight, you might lose your 300th level character to a first leveler. No good.

I don''t thinks so. When I play a game I almost always identifices myself with the character I''m playing. It sort of becomes my Avatar. I spend a lot of imagination in getting a feel and developing a kind of identity for this character.

If I had to change character every other month, regardless of advancement or not, that would not "feel" right. I would have to start all over with developing an identity each time my character dies. In the end I would just drop it and give up on the game. The characters would be notting more than ''use and throw away'' characters and therefore not inspire me very much into roleplaying them.

Regards

nicba

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

11. The last ten items hopefully decreased the worth of combat so much that when it happens it''s worth going to see! Hence, character death will become news, something people actually care about. Maybe once. In a year. Maybe.(actually, the total deaths for an entire system might run in the double digits if there''s no war on.)

How do you ever hope to accomplish this? In reality death a VERY final. Combat is discouraged very much and there''s lot of other things to do.

But people still dies. There are still random deaths from accidents, fights, murders, even stupid wars.

And in a game you even has to deal with stupid people who just signs in for a one time game and go slaughtering everybody around him. If combat is risky for even strong characters there''s no garantee that he can be stopped before he kills a lot of good role playing characters.

Regards

nicba