http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1002286

Because apparently some people do.  Recently, I was reading a thread on the WotC forums about how 4e is making it difficult to kill players without the DM seeming like a douche.

Just read these exchanges (Caelic = good guy):

QuoteArcTan
...So don't kill your PCs. Problem solved.

The fact that the game works better if you don't kill the PCs is not new to 4e at all. It seems to be one of the many things that has always dogged the game that the designers have finally seen fit to acknowledge ("Let's be honest here, the DM can't kill PCs without looking like a jerk no matter what we do -- let's just design the game with that as an assumption").

QuoteCaelic
I think there's a certain player mindset that does feel the way you described--"If bad things happen to me in the game, it's because the DM is a jerk." I don't think it's a particularly mature mindset, but I acknowledge that it exists. I don't think, however, that it should be catered to.

QuoteArcTan
What's "immature" about saying "As a player of a game, I have the right to know what to expect from the game, and if I don't *want* frustration thrown my way I shouldn't get it"?

QuoteCaelic
If we're going to go in that direction, why not simply say "The PCs can't die?" It's not like it'd be the first RPG to do so.

QuoteArcTan
Baby steps. I'm still holding out hope for what 5e or 6e may become.

QuoteSynthapse
Often, the best DMs preserve the illusion of lethal consequences without actually enforcing them.

No matter how badly you think 4e will turn out, just imagine how much worse it would be if these guys were on the development team.

Countdown to Erik Boille Commencing:

5...4...3...2...

4e has characters dying in droves in the DDXP demo, so I'm not overly concerned about it.

But in more general terms, I can see a game where there is no threat of death. A Golden Age Superheroes game could be great fun even though you know Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman are never going to die.

As long as the price of failure is something I can get into, it doesn't have to be death.

GRANDFATHER

(off-screen)

She doesn't get eaten by the Eels at this time.

And the second we hear him:


THE SICK KID'S ROOM

The Kid looks the same, pale and weak, but maybe he's gripping the
sheets a little too tightly with his hands.

THE KID

What?

GRANDFATHER

The Eel doesn't get her. I'm explaining to you because you looked
nervous.

THE KID

Well, I wasn't nervous.

His Grandfather says nothing, just waits.

THE KID

Well, maybe I was a little bit concerned. But that's not the same
thing.

GRANDFATHER

Because I can stop now if you want.

THE KID

No. You could read a little bit more ... if you want.

(He grips the sheets again, as the Grandfather picks up the book)

I think Synthapse's comment is the most interesting one. There are a number of players who want to pretend that they are pretending to have dangerous adventures. There's a couple of reasons they might want to play this way.

1)Dying means you have to sit out and sitting out means not playing. Not playing is less fun than playing. This is the argument you hear alot and it's not without merit, I suppose.

2)RPG's model fiction, and the main characters in fiction rarely die.

3)The players in question are pussies; too insecure to handle even imaginary defeat. There, I said it.

I'm of the opinion that RPG's are still games. For all the time spent playing a character and however much attachment one might have, it's still just a playing piece. If you want your character to live to be a ripe old age, you should avoid monsters and adventure and all that. I've seen groups where the GM was only there to ratify the power fantasies of the players; there was no "game", only an exercise in masturbatory wish fullfillment.

I mean, I hate to be the guy saying "badwrongfun", but learning to be good winners and losers is something we learned in T-Ball when I was 6. There is ice cream either way. Suck it up and roll a new character...

John Morrow, you give an excellent argument for why player character death is not a requirement. As long as a character you give a damn about could die.  Of course death is simply a subset of things to give a damn about.

Quote from: SgtSpaceWizardI've seen groups where the GM was only there to ratify the power fantasies of the players; there was no "game", only an exercise in masturbatory wish fullfillment.

I mean, I hate to be the guy saying "badwrongfun", but learning to be good winners and losers is something we learned in T-Ball when I was 6. There is ice cream either way. Suck it up and roll a new character...

Phrase it however you like, I'd like to see some evidence that PC-killing campaigns are somehow objectively superior to non-PC-killing campaigns.  i.e. What exactly makes your masturbation better than other peoples?  

In my experience, there is no correlation between how easily PCs are killed and either how (1) mature, and (2) challenging, the campaign is.  That is, there have been extremely challenging games where there wasn't a strong threat of death -- in particular, some Champions games come to mind, where there were very challenging strategic problems as well as tactical fights -- but we kept to the convention that PCs didn't die.  Conversely, there have been extremely immature, unchallenging games where PCs are regularly killed -- the players just got used to rolling up new characters.

Why play a game where a character can't die? Because you can do much nastier stuff while he's alive.

I'm still in love with the death rule in Polaris: The Heart (~ player) can ask for the character's death but the Mistaken (~ GM) need not grant ist.

Some people get attached to their characters; the game is more about the character to them than the feeling of excitement that comes with risk.

I'm not one of those people, but I have plenty of players who fit that mold.

..

QuotePermanent death
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In computer role-playing games (CRPGs), permanent death (sometimes permadeath or PD) is a situation in which player characters (PCs) die permanently and are removed from the game.[1] Less common terms with the same meaning are persona death and player death.[2] This is in contrast to games in which characters who are killed (or incapacitated) can be restored to life (or full health), often at some minor cost to the character.

The term is most commonly used in discussions of roguelike CRPGs and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), although it is sometimes used in discussions of the mechanics of non-electronic role-playing games.

The presence of permanent death increases the penalty for mistakes leading to the death of PC. Depending on the type of game and the player's involvement, the penalty can include loss of power in various forms in game, loss of in-game story progress, and loss of emotional investment in the PC. The primary impact of permadeath in a game is to increase the significance of player decisions concerning life-and-death matters for the PC. Those games without permanent death may or may not impose a penalty for a PC's death. In some games a PC can be restored from death for an in-game fee; the availability of such restoration, even if the PC cannot afford it, means such games are not typically labeled as having permanent death.

Contents [hide]
1 In multiplayer computer games
2 In single-player computer games
3 In other games
4 Notes
5 References
 


[edit] In multiplayer computer games
Permanent death in multiplayer computer games is very controversial.[3] Due to player desires and the resulting market forces involved, MMORPGs (such as World of Warcraft) and other multiplayer-focused RPGs rarely feature permanent death. Generally speaking, there is little support in multiplayer culture for permanent death.[4] Richard Bartle has compared player distaste for permadeath to player distaste for pedophilia.[5] For games which charge an ongoing fee to play, permanent death may drive players away, creating a financial disincentive to include permanent death.[6][7]

Diablo II is a noteworthy, mainstream exception that includes support for an optional "hardcore" mode when playing online. "Hardcore mode" in Diablo II subjects characters to permanent death. Star Wars Galaxies had permadeath for Jedi characters for a short period, but later eliminated that functionality.[8]

Proponents attribute a number of reasons why others oppose permanent death. Some attribute tainted perceptions to poor early implementations.[9] They also believe that confusion exists between player killing and permanent death, when the two do not need to be used together.[10] Proponents also believe that players initially exposed to games without permanent death consider new games from that point of view.[11] Those players are attributed as eventually "maturing," to a level of accepting permanent death, but only for other players' characters.[12]

The majority of MMORPG players are unwilling to accept the large penalty of losing their characters. Some MMORPGs experimented with permanent death in an attempt to simulate a more realistic world, but the majority of players preferred not to risk permanent death for their characters. As a result, while MMORPGs are occasionally announced that feature permanent death, most either never ship or remove permanent death so as to increase the game's mass appeal.[13]

Proponents of permanent death desire the additional significance that the risk of permadeath gives their in-game actions. While games without permanent death often impose an in-game penalty for restoring a dead PC, the penalty is relatively minor compared to being forced to create a new PC. Therefore, the primary change in experience permanent death creates is that it makes a player's decisions more significant; without permanent death there is less incentive for the player to consider in-game actions seriously.[14] Those players seeking to risk permanent death feel that the more severe consequences heighten the sense of involvement and achievement derived from their characters.[15][16] The increased risk renders acts of heroism and bravery within the gameworld significant; the player has risked a much larger investment of time. Without permanent death, such actions are "small actions."[17] However, in an online game, permadeath generally means starting over from the beginning, isolating the player of the now-dead character from former comrades.

Richard Bartle called out as advantages of permanent death: restriction of early adopters from permanently held positions of power,[18] content reuse as players repeat early sections,[19] its embodiment of the "default fiction of real life", improved player immersion from more frequent character changes, and reinforcement of high level achievement.[20] Bartle also believes that in the absence of permanent death, game creators must continually create new content for top players, which discourages those not at the top from even bothering to advance.[21]

Proponents of permanent death systems in MMORPGs are a relatively small sub-section of the hardcore gaming community. These players are often interested in additional challenges provided by games that attempt greater realism in their simulation. These players will often seek less restricted social and economic environments catering to a greater range of player versus player interaction and risk versus reward scenarios.

Those players who prefer not to play with permanent death are generally unwilling to accept the risk of the large penalties associated with it. Paying the penalty of permanent death often means a great deal of time spent to regain levels, power, influence, or emotional investment that the previous character possessed. This increased investment of time can dissuade casual players.[22] Depending on the design of the game, this may involve playing through content that the player has already experienced. Players no longer interested in those aspects of the game are often unwilling to spend time playing through them again, These players seek to have fun and are unwilling to play through sections they no longer enjoy in the hope of reaching others to which they previously had access. Some players dislike the way that permanent death causes players to be much more wary than they would in regular games; they argue that this cautiousness reduces the heroic atmosphere that games seek to provide.[23] Ultimately this can reduce play to slow, repetitive, low-risk play, commonly called "grinding".[24] Of course, the significance of heroism without the risk of permanent death is dramatically reduced. Most MMORPGs do not allow character creation at an arbitrary experience level, even if the player has already achieved that level with a now-dead character, providing a powerful disincentive for permanent death.

Currently there are a few MMORPGs in development that promise permanent death as a feature. In Wurm Online, high level priests can choose to become Champions of their gods. While this makes them much more powerful, if they die three times, the character will permanently die. Face of Mankind, which has made it to retail, also claims to have permadeath, but it does provide automatic respawning for dead characters via 'clone insurance'. This is available for a trivial in-game fee—two thousand credits per month (characters start with ten thousand credits). Characters also start with three free clones, more of which can be purchased very cheaply, so permadeath only occurs when players make an effort to use it to delete their characters, as no other option for character deletion is provided.

Armageddon has featured permanent death almost from its inception, circa 1991.

BatMUD Hardcore has featured permanent death using a separate copy of the 'normal' server which opened in 2000. This was heavily inspired by Diablo II hardcore.

Gemstone IV featured a system in which permanent death happened if the character did not obtain favor in the form of "deeds" with the Goddess of death, Lorminstra, but this has been removed. If the character dies and is not resurrected by a cleric, the character will decay and meet Lorminstra after a period of time. Under the permanent death system, if the character had deeds, Lorminstra would guide the character back to life in a new body, with all of the character's equipment and free of wounds, but not of scars, and receive an experience penalty. If the character did not have deeds, Lorminstra would guide the character to his permanent resting place. Now, if the character does not have deeds, they will just receive a larger experience penalty than the one for characters with deeds.

DragonRealms, a spinoff of Gemstone IV, still features permanent death. To avoid it, the character must find favor with his or her god or goddess, rather than just the patron of death. The number of times the PC could die were counted as favors, and more could be obtained by placing "unabsorbed" experience points into an orb and then offering it to the character's god. If the character died and decayed without favors, the character would "walk the Starry Road"—DragonRealms worldwide messaging for permanently dying.

Sierra's Middle-earth Online (in 1999) planned to include permanent character death as a risk posed in certain encounters.[13] Development on this game halted and the rights later passed to Turbine, who released Lord of the Rings Online without permadeath in 2007.


[edit] In single-player computer games
Few single-player CRPGs exhibit death that is truly permanent, as most allow the player to load a previously saved game and continue from the stored position. Intrinsic implementations of permanent death can be seen within the roguelike games, such as NetHack, most of which do not allow for restoring games upon making a fatal mistake. Another example of a single-player CRPG that has permanent death is Wizardry 8 when playing in "Iron Man" mode. In an Iron Man game, it is not possible for the player to save the game manually; it only saves on completion of certain quests or when exiting the game. If the player's whole party dies in an Iron Man game, the save file is permanently deleted.

The Xbox game Steel Battalion offers an example of permanent death in a non-RPG context. The lengthy campaign mode must be started from scratch if the player fails to eject from a destroyed vehicle. This reinforces the simulation aspect of the game, and forces the player to think seriously about any risks taken on missions. The hacker game Uplink also features an example of permanent "death"; although the player cannot die in the game, the player can have his or her campaign end if caught hacking an important server, which results in the PC being disavowed by the Uplink corporation and forced to start from scratch.


[edit] In other games
Few non-electronic role-playing games give players the opportunity to resurrect characters, although older combat-oriented games, including the most popular game, Dungeons & Dragons, sometimes do. Most modern games emphasize plot and character development rather than hack-and-slash combat, and as such, player death is rarely part of the game, permanent or otherwise.

Even within those games in which death is possible, the frequency of permanent death varies greatly, based on the desires of the gamemaster and the play group as a whole. Similarly, because of the freedom of the gamemaster to modify rules, some gamemasters choose to add permanent death to the few games that normally lack it. Others may subtract it from games where it is normally present.

For most games with character resurrection, PCs typically must pay a price to be restored. The price is often an in-game fee paid to a non-player character with magic or technology capable of restoring the character. Such a fee might be paid by the PC in advance, or by other PCs. In many games, the effort required to create a character is decidedly non-trivial, giving players a significant incentive to avoid permanent death. Unlike MMORPGs, new player characters can be created at a power level equivalent to the remaining party, to allow the new character to meaningfully contribute to a game in progress.

Why not killing PC's is sometimes better:

1) Commitment. Let's face it, people get attached to their heroes/imaginary people. You build emotional commitment to that persona, and they keep coming back, they actually invest more effort int the game, and time.

2) Story. Yes I know its sometimes a dirty word around here, but quite fun (and popular) fictions manage to tell entire stories without offing their lead protagonists. Sure it happens in literature all the time that the LEAD is offed, but in order to build a complete beginning, middle, and end--that makes sense and is fun as your players put their characters through it, you need those characters to keep going.


3) Time. Many systems take a notable amount of time to generate a character. This time can be better spent in actual play, if you aren't repeatedly having to create new characters.

4) Relating to both story and emotional investment. When you start a game players are raring to go, they want to play this campaign out. Losing a single member can diminish the flow of the game, or even derail other players fun. Especially if they've built commitments to the "group" of characters as friends and allies. Even if it isn't there character. (Example: A death in my High Valor campaign, left another character without his "buddy", they momentarily discussed actually trying to find a way to raid Heaven/hell to get him back. Albeit, the game isn't about that and dying well is in the very FIRST chapter as a potential game result. And the character did indeed die well.)

Quote from: SilverlionWhy not killing PC's is sometimes better:

2) Story. Yes I know its sometimes a dirty word around here, but quite fun (and popular) fictions manage to tell entire stories without offing their lead protagonists. Sure it happens in literature all the time that the LEAD is offed, but in order to build a complete beginning, middle, and end--that makes sense and is fun as your players put their characters through it, you need those characters to keep going.

Story is one of the best reasons for death being on the table.  How can you be heroic without risk?  Where's the noble sacrifice without the sacrifice?  A tragic flaw means lethal consequences - look at Shakespearian tragedies.  

If a player says he's doing something even though his character has a high chance of dying, he has more investment in what's happening than if he knows he'll come through no matter what.  Memorable deaths are a big part of recounting past games.

That said, not all deaths enhance game play.  Anything that amounts to nothing more than failing a roll or failing two rolls in a row adds much to a campaign.  I'm referring to things like, "Sorry you failed your traps roll then failed the poison save while opening the secret door to finally face your father's murderer."

Quote from: jhkimPhrase it however you like, I'd like to see some evidence that PC-killing campaigns are somehow objectively superior to non-PC-killing campaigns.  i.e. What exactly makes your masturbation better than other peoples?  

In my experience, there is no correlation between how easily PCs are killed and either how (1) mature, and (2) challenging, the campaign is.  That is, there have been extremely challenging games where there wasn't a strong threat of death -- in particular, some Champions games come to mind, where there were very challenging strategic problems as well as tactical fights -- but we kept to the convention that PCs didn't die.  Conversely, there have been extremely immature, unchallenging games where PCs are regularly killed -- the players just got used to rolling up new characters.

The superhero genre is a special case I think, since death doesn't always stick... not even to Bucky, alas...

I wouldn't say the quantity of PC death can be used to measure the maturity or level of challenge of a given campaign. But I think how a player deals with the death of their character reflects on their maturity. I think when groups get to the point where they are drawing up "social contracts" demanding "script immunity" that they are showing themselves to be a bit fragile. Note the player who is quoted saying they have a "right" not to be "frustrated". Some people think that just by participating in the game their success should be guaranteed and that's pretty weak IMHO.

It's less a question of DO PCs die and more of CAN they die. It's already pretend, after all. The tigers are all paper, or lead at best.

Quote from: NicephorusStory is one of the best reasons for death being on the table.  How can you be heroic without risk?  Where's the noble sacrifice without the sacrifice?  A tragic flaw means lethal consequences - look at Shakespearian tragedies.  

If a player says he's doing something even though his character has a high chance of dying, he has more investment in what's happening than if he knows he'll come through no matter what.  Memorable deaths are a big part of recounting past games.

That said, not all deaths enhance game play.  Anything that amounts to nothing more than failing a roll or failing two rolls in a row adds much to a campaign.  I'm referring to things like, "Sorry you failed your traps roll then failed the poison save while opening the secret door to finally face your father's murderer."

Right and one aspect you're missing there is choice. In many of the tragedies, the people CHOSE to do things they knew they wouldn't survive, or couldn't survive--that choice was often made in the heat of the moment but not without appreciation that this specific instance would HIGHLY likely bring about death. Now RPG's don't often offer that choice to the player--knowing their character will die--some PCs will turn around and try something else. It is why I explicitly state "dying well" is a goal, for pc heroes in my FRPG. Yet they are told full well, in advance--if you fail this specific feat, you will die.  Still leaving them to go forward, or try something "easier/less chance of dying", yet also less chance of making the difference they want to inflict.


The stories are often made powerful because the character knowns in context the extreme likelihood of death, and do it anyway. It's less poignant if it seems senseless and random.

Quote from: SilverlionThe stories are often made powerful because the character knowns in context the extreme likelihood of death, and do it anyway. It's less poignant if it seems senseless and random.

That was my intent with my last paragraph above.  I prefer things like traps and mooks to be complications more than chances to roll to see if you die.

Another issue is how people deal with uncertainty and risk.  To have some element of realism, I prefer a fair degree of uncertainty.  Some people are highly risk averse and steer away from all forms of randomness where things are not under their control.  Unexpected death is the worst possible random outcome.

One other thing that I consistently hear is that truly lethal combat makes players hesitant to enter combat so wind up trying other avenues more often.