Optional Realities & Project Redshift

[Jeshin]

There was once a MUD which was RPE. On this MUD of whose name I cannot remember there was a kingdom with a king. This kingdom with a king had a mercenary problem and one day they stormed the castle and managed to kidnap the king. The king was killed but the tale isn't over... because you see he appeared once more memories intact and placed a bounty on those mean mean mercenaries.

Now some might say. Well if the mercenaries knew the king would rez then why did they kill him? I have no idea. The point is you can see some of the problems that MUDs specifically have had with lacking perma-death in games and not appropriately working that into their setting/theme.

If you check out that perma-death thread that Crayon linked I believe someone provided an example of how a monetized game called Gemstone III (MUD) handles death. The tldr is that players got a rez from deities and all they had to do was make sure they were in good standing which equated to leaving a donation on a shrine/alter at regular variables.

Thus the only way to die was to basically intentionally piss off a deity that you knew was rezzing you everytime you died. This was a roleplay game, I believe, and is still running. I think they tweaked their death mechanics a bit in the last few years.

[TNP]

I played GSIII a long, long time ago. Back when it was a service on GEnie and they charged by the hour on dial up. Gods, I wasted so much money back then. But at least I never called in during prime time. I wonder if my character is still there, archived somewhere.

[Thenomain]

The games I'm talking about aren't about not having the "perma-" part, but not having the "death" part. Death without permadeath should have a very good explanation for it, both for the theme and the gameplay itself.

That said, I now want to create a game where non-perma-death is allowed on a game with death. FreeMarket (the RPG) is a pretty good example of this.

Eclipse Phase is another good example of this.

One of these two is an insanely popular, very dark, nearly dystopian cyberpunkish trans-humanism game that is free to download.

Knowing that your opponent may not stay dead when you kill them changes everything. I suspect that the King in @Jeshin's example was playing the OOC Bullshit "Because I Can" game. On the other hand, it could have also been thematic and cause severe consequences throughout the game world that would force people to find a way to depose him, destroy his power-base, and cause an epic that could be told about for years to come.

On the other other hand, it could also be tiresome and emotionally draining on the players having to deal with crap they didn't want to deal with just because one person thought it was a cool idea, but now everyone's stuck with it. Two sides of the same coin.

We in the Mush world also have to, from time to time, deal with OOC griefing. Believe me, permadeath doesn't stop these people.

[Gingerlily]

@Thenomain

Yeah. On MUDs where there is no permanent death, characters have to act as if they are shocked every time someone 'dies' and then is returned. Characters have to rp as if they fear death will be permanent, even if it is not, even if they have died 12 times and returned from the dead. It has a bit of OOC cheesiness to it obviously, but games make it work. I've played on games where it works just fine.

I was not referring to any other aspect of OOCing, present or not, just the aspect of referring to, and playing out, dying and coming back on games where it is not permanent and happens frequently. Because I -still- do not believe that games where there is no permadeath, where people do die and return, are inferior in their rp environment/less immersive/not as awesome/whatever, and that is an argument that "RPI vs Everyone" has had for years and years. I've just picked my stance is all.

[Gingerlily]

I expect that each game has a thematic way of explaining this, be it a God of the Underworld bringing people back or whatever. Clerics resurrecting people. I don't have a wide berth of experience on many games that do this, but those I have played on/heard things about figure out how to work it in.

On the RPE MUD I played for many years, knowing that your opponent did not 'stay dead' did NOT make PvP or PK any gentler. People who got killed would lose levels and accumulated xp that usually amounted to months of 'work', and these things are important on a game where some of the entertainment is gathering up a group of your friends to slay a dragon or whatever. You may return from the dead, but you have been SHAMED by your lack of skills in being ganked by the other guy, and also you are sad because you have been demoted from invitations to the dragon slaying group to invitations to the lesser-beast slaying group until you get yourself back into top shape.

There was plenty to make players, and characters, cry. It was gentler than losing a character you'd created forever perhaps, but that did not make it -gentle-.

[BetterJudgment]

Again, there's a lot of talking past each other going on.

It seems to me that having your character die for good makes sense either in a non-RP game where you're just putting another quarter in or on a RP game where combat is rarer, more considered, and more serious. If that's the case, then any MUSH on which I've played qualifies as "permadeath"; it is just much harder to end up dead as opposed to injured/maimed/out of commission for a while. When I've had a character die, it was as the result of choices made before and during the scene and with the understanding that it ended my playing that character. It was done with my consent--really, at my suggestion--and to enable the character who killed mine to further his character's story, but that didn't make the death any less permanent.

Really, the "permadeath" requirement for listing on OR is addressed to MUDs where the resurrection mechanic is essentially OOC, so it should have nothing to do with other kinds of games where resurrection either makes sense IC or doesn't occur. The king and the mercenaries almost surely wouldn't happen even on a Lords 'n' Ladies MU* because the players immediately call shenanigans.

[Jeshin]

The perma-death mechanic is for all MUs I was just giving examples of MUDs. While I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with not having perma-death on a game (especially if it folds it into the setting/theme) just because one game runs a MUSH codebase and the other runs a MUD codebase doesn't mean we're going to introduce double-standards.

As long as a MUSH as the ability for a character to be killed by another character without the dying persons consent you're good. To my knowledge most if not all MUSHes do this. If your game has some kind of bring back to life functionality than as long as there is either a limit or a counter to such an action than you'd still qualify as per the Sindome example where the older and more savvy a player is the harder it is to permanently kill them because of wealth, allies, and general game knowledge.

[Jeshin]

So lets take like Kushiel's Debut as an example because they deserve all of the free advertisement.

Let us suppose my Duc Ernest died and some crazy foreigner magic user performed a ritual to bind Ernest's soul to a new body but he was like a slave or something. Well Ernest is alive again, he wasn't permanently killed. There were apparently some very steep and costly consequences for his death as he is now a shadow of his former self, is probably enslaved, and presumably would have lost some of his xp or dice or something.

Now let us suppose that as long as Ernest's soul stone is safe his current body cannot die. Well that's a bit like a Lich and it's also a bit difficult to track that down and kill him but he can still technically die. That would probably qualify as perma-death as long as there was some reasonable method of finding someones soul stone and blowing it up if you put in a concerted effort.

I use this example for a more DnD/Fantasy type game that has some kind of soul binding or rez mechanics. Such things can be prevented and as long as that prevention is in your game than you're fine. For example you cannot rez someone in dnd (normally) without a body/remains unless you're using some max level magic.

[Thenomain]

@Gingerlily said:

Yeah. On MUDs where there is no permanent death, characters have to act as if they are shocked every time someone 'dies' and then is returned.

Why?

This is what's baffling me.

If nobody truly dies, why do you have to be surprised one bit?

What in theme or setting is enforcing this? And since IMO code is there to supoport and not define the game, if theme and setting say that death is permanent, why doesn't the code? Or hell, why does staff allow it?

There's a disconnect going on here. Not in how you and I are talking, but in how your Example Mud treats its own game. It sounds like Example Mud doesn't respect its own material, and if it doesn't then why should anyone else?

[Jeshin]

@Thenomain

You have to understand the originator of MUDs and what came after theme. MUDs spawned from text-based adventure "interactive books" like Zork. In adventure games like that and the ones that followed like Monkey Island and Full Throttle. Death wasn't permanent it just set you back. Thus when MUDs were created they treated death like you'd treat death in those games or an arcade game. Momentary annoyance with some kind of penalty to encourage you to not want to die.

When MUDs began to become RP heavy this "gamey" aspect was never fully lost from some of the MUDs that went down this path. They treated the game portion of the MUD and the story portion of the MUD as separate or at least they slept in separate beds at night. An example of this is The Sea of Storms. If you die to an NPC in the sea of storms, outside of an RP, than you just get an XP penalty and respawn. If you die to an NPC in the sea of storms within an RP than you're dead. This is a game that has perma-death but it is also a game where the gameplay and the story do not sit, side by side all the time and it's a pretty good example of a MUD making that transition from gamey to storybased.

Now lets look what came after MUDs... MMOs. Everquest itself was once suspected of having portions of DIKU/Smaug in its code. It never was pursued but some people thought it might. In MMOs you want your players to keep playing (and paying) and so perma-death doesn't exist only death penalties. I point this out because you can clearly see the perma-death / roleplay centric branch of the MUD community is not the main branch/tree of where it ended up. Thus we have some legacy issues which color development of MUD games from time to time.

TLDR MUDs came from a very different mindset than MUSHes and this has influenced some of the gamey respawn instances that exist on them.

[Thenomain]

@Jeshin said:

You have to understand the originator of MUDs

I think you don't understand your audience. Yes, I have to understand the history of MUDs. I already understand the history of MUDs. I think a lot of us here understand Zork and, truly, Adventure (where we all come from). I follow up with two words: Ultima Online. Yeah, we know.

My question to @Gingerlily was "why is it black or white?" The answer of "because history" explains how we got here, but not why this has to be. Nobody has to be surprised when someone comes back from the dead if that's the way the game works, and if the game is not meant to work that way, then something is out of sync.

So I'm not satisfied. "We do this mental gymnastics because we've always done this mental gymnastics." Tautology for Fun and Profit. I'm sure a lot of people are content with letting things lie, but I'm not, and so I want to know what this behavior serves, what is it for.

[Jeshin]

Mmm, no I think you still misunderstand.

The fact some games have a respawn thing with no concept of perma-death is because of where MUDs came from. It's not based on respecting or not respecting their own material it's just how far they've moved away from the baseline of what a MUD is/used to be.

It's like having Super Marios Bros 1 and Super Mario Bros 2. One of them is the baseline and the other can progress from the baseline but it still starts at the baseline.

[crayon]

@Thenomain said:

The answer of "because history" explains how we got here, but not why this has to be.

It doesn't have to be, really. I mean, games that do not have mechanical perma-death could certainly do with either establishing that death doesn't really happen as an IC thing, and work it into their setting and theme, or else just redesigning the gameplay to make death a possibility, but less of a probability. The thing is, not many games are really built for perma-death. If you implemented it straight in on most MUDs, it would go very, very poorly, just because of how the games are designed. There really aren't that many codebases that are already well-suited to it, so where it comes to MUDs it's very hard for people to significantly change the world to accommodate perma-death without investing a lot of effort into rebuilding at least some aspects of the engine. On the other hand, when you simply integrate a lack of death into your setting and your world, it can create a feeling that there's a lack of stakes. It kind of takes the meaning out of most actions, too. Is something really heroic if there's no real permanent risk? Which isn't to say that it can't work on a consent basis, but that's not really everybody's cup of tea, and it gets kind of ugly fast in my experience. Eg, people doing suicidal things and then not being willing to die versus people doing sane things and being willing to die. It just kind of creates an environment in which your characters get ICly punished for your being willing to play along, OOCly, and the reverse in people that don't want to play along getting rewarded.

[Alzie]

@Thenomain To explain Crayon, It boils down to the fact that Muds use flatfiles for each character. These flatfiles determine what names are taken as well. Coding death in requires deciding how to deal with these flatfiles and/or whether or not you allow names to be reused. Real permadeath would mean a system that closes a connection, ends the flatfile, deletes/moves it somewhere and then, if wanted, pings a system to make sure the name can't be used again. All of this in poorly documented, error prone, badly written hardcode (usually c, because when the mud codebases were written, despite the availability of better choices, c was apparently the shit) that makes even me want to stab my eyes out when I look at it.

So basically: It is not easy to change mud hardcode.

[crayon]

@Alzie said:

@Thenomain To explain Crayon, It boils down to the fact that Muds use flatfiles for each character. These flatfiles determine what names are taken as well. Coding death in requires deciding how to deal with these flatfiles and/or whether or not you allow names to be reused. Real permadeath would mean a system that closes a connection, ends the flatfile, deletes/moves it somewhere and then, if wanted, pings a system to make sure the name can't be used again. All of this in poorly document, error prone, badly written hardcode (usually c, because when the mud codebases were written, despite the availability of better choices, c was apparently the shit) that makes even me want to stab my eyes out when I look at it.

So basically: It is not easy to change mud hardcode.

It actually goes past that into plain game design. If you implement permadeath it really changes the entire way your game is going to need to work mechanically, especially with most MUDs being built on the detritus of hack & slash. With how easy it is to die on many MUDs that have been built with hack & slash in mind, the amount of balancing and restructuring that would have to go into your mobiles, your combat system, your progression system, etc. boils down to a pretty enormous workload. Permadeath is also usually going to want to include more realistic or advanced code for injuries, handling situations where people are on the brink of death, etc., because when dying is for good, running out of HPs and then immediately going splat just doesn't really cut it sometimes.

So basically a lot of MUDs wind up trying to straddle the fence and wind up with code/RP separation. You can go kill a hundred mobiles, then go to a bar and chat, and when those mobiles respawn you just kind of handwave the whole thing. It's just kind of a lazy solution to the problem of MUDs not initially really being designed with RP in mind, and I think that's where the 'RPI' codebases tried to break away by starting somewhat fresh and building the game systems with roleplay in mind.

[Jeshin]

TLDR for Crayon - Imagine Dark Souls added roleplay and perma-death and didn't update gameplay. You lose all progress (and roleplay character development) on death. That is what would happen to a lot of MUDs even some with RP on them but no perma-death.

[Thenomain]

You know, I don't mean to be a dick (er, more than usual), but I'm still looking forward to @Gingerlily's take on this. Ginger, when you can!

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@Jeshin

The fact some games have a respawn thing with no concept of perma-death is because of where MUDs came from.

Mushes come from the same source as Muds, so yeah, I understand, I just don't buy it.

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@crayon

It doesn't have to be, really.

This is a satisfying answer. I mean, no, it doesn't answer the problem but it does admit there is a situation that just is. Why do Mushes not have "automated code" as defined by the Mud community? Because we don't do things that way. But lo, it continues!

There really aren't that many codebases that are already well-suited to it

Which is where @Alzie chimes in, below. Coders be coders, and I suspected this was part of the reason.

On the other hand, when you simply integrate a lack of death into your setting and your world, it can create a feeling that there's a lack of stakes.

It can, but when I set to pass someone on the freeway I can create a stressful situation that may lead to injury or in very extreme cases death. I have gone pretty far out of my way coming up with situation after situation where the lack of perma-death could be fun.

Every long-running superhero comic ever, for a start.

Is something really heroic if there's no real permanent risk?

While I understand the allure of the Monomyth and it does make a fairly consistently good story, there are so many other options out there. Cutting them off because of it might not work is ... nnh, it feels like cutting off one's nose in spite of one's avoidance of new food. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

And as I've told @Jeshin a few times, there are more risks than death. Can we talk about risks that are not death for once?

Planescape: Torrent, perhaps the best written cRPG (yes, I'd put it over the original Fallout), avoids death without tossing out risk. And if you can't call that guy a hero, I'm going to have to ask you to don your Fighting Trousers!

The extremely-popular-in-its-day RPG 7th Sea allows the owner of the character to decide if death is on the table.

Fate Core has a solid mechanic built around this, and it's hard to find a modern RPG more centered on heroic actions.

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@Alzie

So basically: It is not easy to change mud hardcode.

I believe @crayon is violently agreeing with you.

[Thenomain]

A follow-up, separate from the above discussion:

It occurs to me that I am on a crusade, and that I am passionate about this thread and it's not really clear why, so I'm going to spell it out.

1. The way that OR is presenting itself on its own website is to tie all the different Mu* games together. And yet, the prerequisites for listing these selfsame games are based exclusively on Mud understandings and philosophies. I don't see any attempt to reach out, but to accept those who already fit the mold. This strikes me as disingenuous, misleading, and as someone who quite enjoys his own part of the community I would feel I was doing everyone in non-Mud communities a disservice if I didn't point this out.

2. On a personal level, it really ticks me off when someone says they're being representative of me, personally, without having one clue who I am or what I do. This is making me hotter on the topic than I might normally be. I love a good nonsense philosophical discussion as much as the next person, but don't tell me that you have my best interests at heart unless you have the slightest clue what those interests are.

I'm not going to stop being passionate on these items, but since I am dominating the derailment of this thread, I thought maybe I should be fair and put myself in my place. After all, you can't build bridges without a good foundation. Sometimes I'm the one building bridges, sometimes I'm not.

Welcome to the Soapbox.

[Alzie]

@crayon So, because work would be required, nothing is done. Which is consistent with the real reason that we both seem to know but won't say.

@jeshin You say that as if it's a bad thing, as if you have some inherent right to carry something over from your last character on death. Though I know where the thought process stems from, but not all muds ascribe to it.

Overall though, while it's okay to explain a concept for the benefit of those that may not understand it, outright making the claim that everyone in a particular community doesn't understand a concept is a sure fire way to alienate the community. Which you did. From experience, the Mud community is very elitist, claiming they are 'the foundation' and 'genesis.' Terms actually employed I might add by most mud coders and users. In fact, you have, in this thread, referred to Muds as the progenitors of the mush already. Still in keeping with the pattern.

I understand muds. I maintain two custom codebases that I modify for shits and giggles when I'm bored.
SWFote - Sagas
SWR - Some Name Later

So really, You can drop the elitism and superiority. Yeah, I do know, probably better than you think.

[Jeshin]

@Alzie

My last 3 posts have been to @thenomain (although only one has had him @ mentioned because I'm not used to that system). So none of them were attributed to respond to you directly.