The Great PC Death Dilemma

Ghost

I may have posted something about this years ago, but this is something that is always on my mind when it comes to online games and RPGs. Basically, it goes like this:

If no humans ever died in the real world, we'd run into issues of overpopulation, lack of food, CO2 imbalance, etc.
In RPGs, if there is not a threat of a PC dying against the will of their player, then outcomes are staged and "fear of failure" ceases to become a thing.
In RPGs, if PCs never die, then new players will -always- remain X% of XP behind elder players, who will always remain X% ahead of other players, thus there will be:

No true reason why positions are ever rotated with new players taking place
"Capability" is a matter of how old the character is and never the player's ability to RP
Without the "great equalizer" of PC death, player disenfranchisement grows as players will never be able to compete with older characters.
Players literally need to stop gaming, quit, get banned, etc to have a character die or taken out of the power rotation

So that's the short version. Here's my minute at the podium about it.

All "my PC dying isn't fun for me" aside (which I know is a common argument to PVP or dice deciding PC death), I personally find games where my character can do ANYTHING with very little fear of death (or other repercussions that would effectively have the character sheet retired) to be rather BORING. I feel sometimes like knowing (as a player) that nothing TRULY bad would never happen unless I approved it takes away any of the suspense of playing a character. Example: If I were playing baseball in real life and could literally control whether or not I missed the ball on a swing of the bat, would swinging the bat remain fun? It's kind of like that for me. Likewise, also knowing that OTHER PLAYERS know that whether or their PC suffers repercussions/death is a matter of their approval often makes me feel like CHOOSING TO ACCEPT REPERCUSSIONS as a matter of "fair play" is a foolish act because you're going to be playing with players who likely wouldn't accept the same kind of fair play.

Here's an example.

A loooong time ago on Fallcoast there was a "Law" faction of PCs designed to investigate and round up criminals. The PROBLEM was that it was a "consent" game, so unless a character consented to being investigated/hunted/killed for their behavior, the LAW sphere really couldn't DO anything about laws being broken by PCs unless staff intervened. So a group of players went off the rails and made this monstrous Frankenstein-like revived undead creature and posted a roleplay of them going "into the ghetto", some NPC upset the Frankenstein, and then what followed was a lengthy display of "Frankenstein creature tearing 'gang members' apart in the middle of the street". Of course, since it was their own ST'd scene apparently ZERO people recorded it with cell phones, called the police, or was there ever any danger to the PCs. It was, effectively, "LOL I don't consent to getting into trouble for this so Frank is gonna just wantonly massacre "Crips" in the middle of the street, and not only will no one call the cops, but this won't really make the news". To make matters worse, despite there being logically left-over evidence of *multiple people being torn apart in the middle of a street in America", the Law/Hunter sphere couldn't do anything truly about it unless the group of people "consented" to being hunted/chased for it.

The PCs involved ultimately went away not because of repercussions from their RP, but because they were caught cheating the XP system.

Now, this isn't a critique of Fallcoast at all, but an example of where lack of fear of PC death, consent systems being entirely hands-off, and "lack of fear of PCs dying due to dice" gets out of control. You get this over-the-top stuff where you can jump out of an airplane without a parachute and still not die unless you consent to it. In my opinion, this kind of stuff leads to roleplay that becomes increasingly over-the-top.

So, here are the ultimate questions I have:

What DO you do about games and RP systems where "dinosaur characters" are able to simply continue to amass XP with over-the-top RP and zero fear of death/repercussions (as if playing a video game in "god" mode where you can go on a 5-star GTA rampage and simply never die)? I know the MU community will likely never thrive in games where dice determine character death and PVP becomes a thing^. How do you make it so that PCs actually have RISK as a factor without requiring it to be an OOC matter? How do you encourage the retiring of PCs that have so much XP they're spending it on "specialty: basket-weaving" because they're maxed out and hanging around with zero risk of failure/end without consenting to it?

^ Note: The last time I saw a "PVP fight to the death" was somewhere in-between 2000-2006 on "SerenityMush" where it was two god-stat level PCs posing stabbing each other repeatedly, breaking bones, gouging eyes, until ultimately one player CUT INTO THE OTHER PC'S CHEST AND DESTROYED THEIR CYBERNETICALLY ENHANCED HEART...and because neither PC consented to PC death...and then was promptly revived on the spot as the cybernetic heart was repaired and returned to RP without issues the next day. Groan.

Arkandel

@Ghost said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

In RPGs, if PCs never die, then new players will -always- remain X% of XP behind elder players, who will always remain X% ahead of other players, thus there will be:

That is not necessarily true. It depends on the XP distribution system being used in that particular game.

Ghost

@Arkandel said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

@Ghost said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

In RPGs, if PCs never die, then new players will -always- remain X% of XP behind elder players, who will always remain X% ahead of other players, thus there will be:

That is not necessarily true. It depends on the XP distribution system being used in that particular game.

True, it's not necessarily true, because some games can vary XP based on attendance/behavior, but if you have 2 players with similar RP attendance they'll move parallel to each other. However, if the "god stat" player has 2-3 years (give or take benefits from +jobs, connections with staff, etc) then any regular player is never going to "catch up" to that, ever.

Devrex

In my opinion death is just the most boring possible thing you can do to a PC or to their story.

You can create consequences without character death being the consequence.

Maybe the NPC they love is going to die.
Maybe they are going to end up caught up in a deal they don't ICly want to be caught up in.
Maybe they'll get blackmailed.
Maybe they wake up at the bottom of a well with a rainstorm coming in.

I prefer PC complications over PC death.

The PCs are supposed to be the heroes of the book, movie, or TV show. We know the MCs just aren't going to randomly die for no reason because of some random dice roll on all our favorite shows. We know that Spock's probably getting out of today's dilemma alive. The fun is in watching how he gets out alive, and what he has to give up, and whether he actually saves the day, and whether or not he ends up in trouble with Starfleet after he does. That's the story rhythm.

XP dinosaurs are their own sort of problem, sure, but why would you penalize an active, long-term, loyal player for being an active, long-term, loyal player? If they're being obnoxious to the point that new players feel squeezed out, what you do is talk to them quietly and ask them if they can start sending newb PCs to do the footwork. Sure, Detective 500 XP, you know that the next step is talking to the Johnsons. Sure, you could schedule that scene, but maybe what you do is send Officer Newb to do that scene and report back to you. You're still doing the thing, but you're sharing the love. And you as an ST can always say "This event is for characters with less than 100 total XP/Level 1 to 5 characters/whatever." You can control whether or not XP is a determinant of where story goes.

Consent vs. Consequences is a whole other are of conversation that has nothing to do with PC death, actually...because death isn't the only consequence that can come about.

Ganymede

@Ghost said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

What DO you do about games and RP systems where "dinosaur characters" are able to simply continue to amass XP with over-the-top RP and zero fear of death/repercussions (as if playing a video game in "god" mode where you can go on a 5-star GTA rampage and simply never die)?

I generally lose interest with these games. If I wanted to just be a witness to others' greatness, I'd rather waste my time watching pro-wrestling. There's little else for me to do about it as a player.

Were I to run a game, however, I can think of a dozen strategies to implement so that this does not become an issue. The first is that you cannot deny consent to a staff-run scene or its outcome.

How do you make it so that PCs actually have RISK as a factor without requiring it to be an OOC matter?

Again, a game owner is the ultimate arbiter of the outcome of any scene. A player may be able to deny another player's attempt to control their destiny, but a game owner has the larger responsibility of maintaining a game environment that is appealing to a wide audience. With the situation you described, the "easy fix" would be to have staff step in to stop the ridiculousness and impose repercussions.

Sure, you might piss off a handful of players with such deliberate, heavy-handed action; however, consider the countless others who are thankful that they are not beholden to the actions of a small group of assholes hiding behind an ill-conceived policy to shield themselves from reasonable consequences.

How do you encourage the retiring of PCs that have so much XP they're spending it on "specialty: basket-weaving" because they're maxed out and hanging around with zero risk of failure/end without consenting to it?

You don't. I would impose an XP cap, but otherwise allow players to adjust their maxed-out PCs' stats as they develop so as to better reflect their recent histories.

Ghost

I know a lot of my posts come back to "is it an RPG game with writing OR a writing group that uses light RPG elements", but I feel that it applies to this topic.

I've played in a lot (and I mean a lot) of TTRPGs (D&D, etc) where the players knew the GM didn't have the balls to use the hitpoints system in a way that would kill their character. In traditional D&D (and all RPGs) there's a system where if you take too much damage, the character is dead. Write up a new character. However, you can always tell when a GM is actually using the "death and dying rules" based on how the characters play.

Using death&dying rules
"I spend my time observing the room, looking for traps, and making sure it's safe before proceeding."

NOT using death/dying rules
"I strip naked and do a Simone Biles floor exercise running series of flips with my wire cutters out, searching for traps as I flip, hoping to snip wires and disarm traps as I tumble."

I often refer to the latter as: "When the character knows they're in a D&D game"

Mind you, I don't argue for absolute and final PC death as the ONLY answer to things, but players behave differently when they know at some level that they have to understand risks on an OOC level and properly play their characters as understanding risk, as well. An absence of RISK outside of the PC's control changes the landscape greatly, and if you leave that risk in the player's hands they will almost always only choose the risks that either promote their PC or are as minimal as possible.

So I agree with you a lot @Ganymede . Were I to run a game I would require that in staff run scenes consent be waived with specific caveats in mind (caveats being things the game shouldn't have anyway, like rape, etc.).

A while back in my TTRPGs I'm a GM of I instituted a few rules that have helped things GREATLY:

PC death is never off the table, and the more brazenly risky the action the more likely PC death is an outcome. Play your characters as if they know they're capable of dying.
I will always try (within reason) to not have PC death be the only option for failure (ex: instead of everyone dying, they all wake up in a cell and need to escape)
The only successes you can achieve without dice rolls is trivial stuff (making coffee, unlocking your own door with a key, ordering off of a menu).

This stuff has helped my TTRPGs but may not necessarily apply to MU in all cases

Derp

Here's my take on it:

PC Death doesn't make the game better. If anything, you're going to end up driving off players who won't take any action because they're risk-averse. This is one of the things that I vehemently disagreed with the gamerunner on at the last place I staffed. It doesn't make it better. It just makes it so that players feel like their time and investments are going to be wasted, and "chargen is easy" is not an offset for the story and investment that you've put into that character being gone and needing to start from scratch.

Having people who have stuck around on the game be more powerful / have more xp than new people is not a bad thing, and I'll die on that hill. People should be rewarded for investment and loyalty. Period. If new players want to catch up to the older players they can either wait until the natural cycle of attrition takes them there or be more active to get more incentives.

Positions aren't tied to xp or longevity. Positions, like most political things, ebb and flow as characters lose interest in those positions and new people cycle through them, or the older people are forced out by a sheer lack of support for whatever vision they have. Catchup xp is completely and utterly unrelated to who holds what position. Having a position doesn't guarantee competence, just popularity (or lack of opposition).

TL;DR -- Insisting that PCs gotta die sometime is dumb and doesn't have any actual practical benefit. It's just a way to demoralize your players.

Nessa

Diminishing returns. With a boost to recently created players. If there's no levels in the system, do something like, for every 1 xp you'd earn, instead, earn 1/current xp * some amount. So, have a high xp payout, so people move through early touch-ups of their character relatively quickly, but as they amass xp they slow down, exponentially fast.

And so then you hit something of a soft cap without preventing people from still gaining on their dinosaur character, but that dinosaur in 3 years of lots of RP is probably going to 'stay put' and not keep amassing so much as to be problematic.

Gear is something different, but if gear in the game system you are using only has minor bonuses (instead of something like Shadowrun 3rd, where it's massive bonuses) then you don't really have an issue. Though if you do have high gear capacities you can make hard blocks (certain gear there's only X number of in the entire game). And you prevent hording, etc etc. It is certainly harder, but if you start the game with this in mind, I think you can avoid the 'I am god' and 'I am peon' in anything but leveled games.

Happy to help work out a good system for any specific game, but otherwise, those are the general ideas.

Nessa

@Nessa Oh, and then you also make it easy to create a new character, disallow alts, and you have a system where someone with a brand new idea they love, will kill off or retire their character, resetting, but without much issue since they'll gain pretty quick in this kind of system.

Ganymede

@Derp said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

PC Death doesn't make the game better. If anything, you're going to end up driving off players who won't take any action because they're risk-averse.

I agree with you, but I don't think that is the dilemma described, even if Ghost insists on returning to it. I think the question is better framed as whether players should have absolute agency over loss.

In jurisprudential terms (which I know you'll love), I would say that players should have a qualified immunity from loss that is waived in cases where they demonstrate a wanton disregard for consequences.

People should be rewarded for investment and loyalty. Period. If new players want to catch up to the older players they can either wait until the natural cycle of attrition takes them there or be more active to get more incentives.

Character growth isn't the only reward for time investment and loyalty, and that shouldn't be overlooked either. Capping XP isn't about allowing new PCs to catch up; it is about keeping power levels at a point where participation is reasonable for all.

If a PC makes it to a cap, that's great. A player can choose to keep playing or retire (but still retain control of the story of) the PC for posterity or into an NPC-ship (which again they retain control of). Reaching the highest level of WoW or Horizon Zero Dawn doesn't make playing the game any less enjoyable, unless you like the challenge of playing at a lower level. And if you do, then I don't see what the problem is capping XP.

As I have said in the past (several hundred times it feels like) a game can also move the cap upwards if enough players get their PCs there. And at that point the scope of the game can change. But I don't support XP caps just so new players can play "catch-up"; I support them because film noir stories are far less interesting when the "good guys" can obliterate villains with a sneeze.

faraday

@Ghost said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

What DO you do about games and RP systems where "dinosaur characters" are able to simply continue to amass XP with over-the-top RP and zero fear of death/repercussions

Easy - have a system that doesn't allow for dino characters. FS3 does that. There really isn't that much of a gap between what you can walk out of chargen with and the max.

@Ghost said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

he PROBLEM was that it was a "consent" game, so unless a character consented to being investigated/hunted/killed for their behavior, the LAW sphere really couldn't DO anything about laws being broken by PCs unless staff intervened.

Also easy - don't try to do PVP in a consent game. That's just destined to end up in cops-and-robbers playground nonsense.

Of course these decisions (max power level / no PVP) have other effects. Some players are motivated by XP. They get bored if they can no longer advance. Some players want PVP. I'm not saying these things are bad or wrong, just that they're not the only option.

@Ghost said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

I know a lot of my posts come back to "is it an RPG game with writing OR a writing group that uses light RPG elements", but I feel that it applies to this topic.

Exactly. If your goal while MUSHing is to play a game where you're looking for immersion or the suspense of not knowing at any moment what might happen - even if that means your own character's death - hey, more power to you. Again, not saying any of that is bad or wrong.

For me, though? None of that is why I'm here. I want to tell a story with some light RPG tools. I think MUs are closest to ensemble TV series in execution. It's generally pretty lame when one of the ensemble just randomly dies to a henchman, accident, etc. halfway through the season. If you're going to kill off an ensemble character, you want to do it in a way that has meaning--that propels the story forward.

And ultimately, only the players can decide when that's appropriate. Not an arbitrary system.

Arkandel

@Ganymede said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

Reaching the highest level of WoW or Horizon Zero Dawn doesn't make playing the game any less enjoyable, unless you like the challenge of playing at a lower level. And if you do, then I don't see what the problem is capping XP.

What's interesting about those kinds of games though is that, essentially, they are designed around the idea that in many ways the end-game is the game. Leveling, being under 'max level', is kind of a journey meant to teach you the mechanics, allow for some pretty casual fun - often solo - and let you figure out if you like your class.

I don't know if most MU* have that concept at all - mind you, neither am I arguing that they should. That is, MU* tend to let characters mingle in whatever way they see fit; usually that means newbies with oldbies. That said, some games unintentionally pick the 'right' power to play; for example The Reach had so many dinos that many spheres had to throw a whole lot of nastiness at the characters to challenge them at all.

At that point, yes, I'd argue the game had been aimed toward the 'max level'. However the effect that had, combined with death being quite possible (especially in nWoD rules where damage was so very bursty) was that most oldbies just didn't risk their characters. After all they couldn't recreate at anywhere near the same potency if the dice gods gave initiative to some random monster who could absolutely one-shot them.

As a ST I recall quite clearly having lengthy conversations with people who rephrased the same question over and over again without actually saying it outloud: "Is there any chance at all I might die in this PrP?" And many wouldn't join if they didn't get a pretty definite answer to their liking.

Ganymede

@Arkandel said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

At that point, yes, I'd argue the game had been aimed toward the 'max level'. However the effect that had, combined with death being quite possible (especially in nWoD rules where damage was so very bursty) was that most oldbies just didn't risk their characters.

Let me present a different perspective, as someone who very often gets a "max level" PC (because I tend to stick to one game for a long period of time, if I am there for over 3 months).

As an "oldbie," I was never adverse to losing my PC. I honestly have never met any player who said, flat-out: "I don't want to be involved in this because my PC might die." I have stuck many of my WoD PCs, like Maddy (Echoes in the Mist), Clarice (Fallcoast / Fate's Harvest), and Shrike ( ... gah, it was that Mage game) into very deadly situations where they could have gotten gacked easily. And I did this whenever I could because their stories pushed in that direction.

The key term there is "whenever I could".

If I, as a player, am unable to get into plots that could result in my PC's death, then the fact that I seem to avoid risk is a matter of scheduling. It is also a matter of there being a lot of other folks out there who are maxed out or whose power level exceeds my PC's powerhousing their way through a plot (because my PCs -- yes, even Shrike -- tend to be stealth-avoidance tropes). I therefore often find the argument that Dino PCs are risk-adverse to be erroneous.

So I think it is a better policy to:

Use a system that eliminates the power gap, like FS3;
Adopt an advancement policy or system that puts PC into development paths that have flaws, like D&D; or
Adopt an advancement policy that has a moveable cap on power level.

Under such systems or policies, player-motivation is no longer a factor, in my opinion.

hobos

When it comes to stories, I feel unhappy with the idea, in general, if players refuse consequences to their characters' actions by saying "I don't consent to this". But there are a lot of exceptions, and death is one of them.

I don't think it's bad, at all, for someone to express that they're not ready to end their character's story. I don't think character stories should be ended willy-nilly. If characters die all the time for small reasons, you'll get a lot of bitterness, paralysis, and darkness-induced apathy in the playerbase. The lives of characters will no longer feel valuable. So, it is beneficial for death to be something meaningful and consent-based.

If someone is stretching the boundaries of believability, however, then it becomes a burden on both their story and everyone else's story. Also, the thrill of death lurking around the corner can be exciting, and it can make the survival of a very dangerous situation seem like a far more impactful and momentous occasion.

So, for me, my perfect game would have a nice balance that prioritized the story of the characters. Coming back from the edge of death should involve consequences like handicaps or long-term recovery, and also have costs in terms of things like expensive supplies. It might require the cooperation and efforts of other characters, leading to interesting story developments. And there should always be a chance, however small, and based on administrative decisions rather than a mechanized system -- that your character could die, whether you consent to it or not.

Arkandel

This might just be my perspective but I always believed there were just two major issues with PC death in MU* for most people.

Ego.
Identity/social loss.

The first is clear if players take IC failure to coincide with OOC one, feel very protective of their character, identify with their PC's goals, etc.

The second is almost unavoidable. Your character dies and suddenly you have no ties to your friends. You can roll a new PC but unless it's basically a clone, you might be unable to get into the same plots, IC threads, be in on their secrets, miss out on the TRUE LOVE romance with your favorite partner, etc. Even the name people know you as is gone.

Sadly no XP system can fix those social factors.

Misadventure

Real small side nit:

""Capability" is a matter of how old the character is and never the player's ability to RP"

I wanted to make sure that other measures of success were included as sources of XP (in fiction success, and OOC staff-like/GM type rewards for being an organizer, or plot runner, if applicable). Most all actions can fall under "RP" but I wanted to add these in as measures of value to the game.

hobos

You can argue for a game where injecting your own ego into your character is seen as a negative thing, even an immoral or pathetic thing. And from that perspective, you could say that someone getting upset when their character dies is only indicative of their ego, marking them as a lame player whose feelings you don't have to care about.

However, I think that stories thrive when people put in their egos, and truly care about the characters. And I believe that in an environment where people are injecting so much of themselves into a very social subculture, developers and game runners have a moral responsibility to build a system that is psychologically bolstering rather than destroying. The game mechanics, theme, and encouraged culture should guide players towards kindness rather than cruelty, spite, and constant suspicion of each other. A game is meant to be entertaining; it should be a fun solace -- but this has to be balanced, because otherwise it's not a game anymore, and loses any teeth that a game should have. Different people prefer their games to be differently sharp, but that doesn't change whether or not they're injecting their own ego. If someone is putting time into a game they are putting in their ego too. They're only doing it in different ways.

faraday

@Ganymede said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

I honestly have never met any player who said, flat-out: "I don't want to be involved in this because my PC might die."

:raises hand:

I generally don't play on games with involuntary permadeath.

I do occasionally break this rule, as with TGG, but even then it was only after they added some kind of extra lives system. Before that, I only ever played medical support PCs who never went into battle.

I also recognize the need for staff-imposed exceptions if you do something insanely out of normal bounds. But that's a weird case that players can easily avoid.

faraday

@Arkandel said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

This might just be my perspective but I always believed there were just two major issues with PC death in MU* for most people.

While I do agree that for many players the issues are rooted in those two factors, I will present two others from my own perspective:

Story
Investment

Random, meaningless death is often viewed as "bad storytelling" by readers/viewers.

Making up a new character and getting them involved in Stuff is not easy for everyone. I'm not talking about the stats, which for a game like FS3 may only take a few minutes, but about the character. Generating a concept that is fun, fits in theme, and will be accessible to RP. Finding their voice and fleshing out their backstory. Building up relationships with other PCs.

That process is a crapton of work/stress, and I don't want to play somewhere where another player or GM can just capriciously come and kick over my sandcastle.

Devrex

I'd also note that "players will automatically play stupid unless they know death is always on the table no matter what" isn't necessarily the case. Bad players will. Good players separate what their players know (my character probably won't die unless I'm so over-the-top stupid that there's no way to preserve the fiction without allowing it to happen) from what their characters know. And all their character, creeping through the parking garage with a gun in hand, knows, is that there are five gunmen out there and if he's not careful and quiet and canny he's not going to make it out alive.

I find this "is it a game or is it a story" divide to be false: MUSH was never Warhammer, and I find that arbitrary character death is just as stupid on a tabletop D&D too. Taken to its extreme it just means that you no longer really care about the fiction that's unfolding; life is too cheap and you know not to bother to get too attached to anything your character is building or accomplishing. It's just as damaging to the fiction as "nothing can happen to your character ever."

I have killed my own tabletop characters and MUSH characters...when it mattered...when it offered a dramatic, meaningful sacrifice...when the time was right. When it served the fiction.

Without the story, the fiction, the dice are meaningless and boring; without the dice (I really favor dice games over diceless) there are few surprises. I want both the fiction and the surprises.

What I don't want is to have to start from Square One because some GM decided he wanted to have a TPK night, or because someone inexperienced decided to run a scene and shot the challenge level up to 11, or because some staffer doesn't like me and is gunning for me.

Square One means:

As @faraday mentioned, having to go through the work/stress of generating a concept that is fun, fits in theme, and will be accessible to RP...
Yes, having to flesh out and build their relationships with other PCs, which often means, ye gods, another 3 months of mostly small-talk and getting-to-know-you scenes, which are often the least fun kind of RP to do (IMO)...
...Dealing with the fact that some players liked your old character but kind of aren't inspired by your new one, so yes, losing a fair amount of your RP group...
Losing your hooks and ability to get into anything substantial, often for about two to three months...

Compound all that with: MUSH is not like a tabletop where you know you're going to have the same amount of attention from your GM no matter who you're playing.

It takes time to build momentum on a game, and that momentum is often where the fun really starts. Trivializing it as "just grow up and roll a new sheet, bro," just doesn't work for me.