PermaDeath

[Morrolan]

In Steven Brust's "Vlad" books, there is ressurection, but with some caveats:

1) the person who does it had to be a very powerful mage
2) there is a spell that can be cast on a corpse to prevent it
3) there is a time limit--a few days
4) head wounds make it impossible (e.g. the <behead corpse> command

Within these limits, I can see how it would work.  It would be a tool for the rich and powerful.  It would not entirely prevent assassinations.  And it might make some death scenes more enoyable: trying to get back to your noble house so that you can die in a safe place while poison courses through your veins and your assassin pursues you.  Whee!

And it might get magickers some more grudging respect.

I am not recommending this for Armageddon, partially because it would change the game too much, and I like it the way it is.  I came back here for permadeath.

It is a neat idea to play around with, though.

[Linedel]

How much drama can you have if there is no chance you will die? What is the risk what is the gamble? Where is the fear? What is the point of having an enemy if they are effectively immortal?

What's worse, death, or 100 years of torture?

If you think death = roleplay, you don't understand roleplay.  Armageddon is probably the best that's online, but it isn't the only way.

Armageddon's world is one built where death is a key aspect, but it has little to no effect on the quality of the "roleplay."  The main thing it does in a game, especially an automated online game, is give a huge advantage to people who understand the mechanics of the game system, and are therefore capable of significantly reducing their risk in any given situation...

Think of all the stories which become meaningless.

Well, as long as I had to edit this to fix disabling BBCode.. wanted to split this out.  You're talking about "Ok, so, our party went out hunting whatever, and like, we got jumped and 3 died and I crawled back to the gates and the guards all detected the fight and came and saved us!"  (obviously with a lot more details)  How is that significantly different than if that last person ran to town, paid 10k 'sid to whomever, went out with a rescue party, slaughtered the halflings that were eating the party, and resurrected the two that weren't eaten yet?  Seems to me it adds to the story, and you've still got your harrowing escape...  Death is different, not better.


(Note: the answer to the above question depends on the character.)

[joyofdiscord]

I guess its that it takes me SO  long to get a character to where they are 'fun'  to play...      I guess that will change with experience...

Nononono, your character doesn-t need to be good at a single darn thing in order to be fun to play.  In fact, I rather enjoy playing shitty newbie chars.  Being second-rate is fun, and provides entertaining roleplay.  If your character isn't fun to play until you have some l33t skillz, I might suspect your character concept might be less than fully developed.  (I don't know if this is actually the case, so don't think I'm criticizing you personally).  A multi-faceted character with his own personality, fears, likes, dislikes, etc, will be fun to play even if he has no skills.  Enjoy sucking, because you won't suck forever.  Once you are uber, and good at everything, what is so fun about that?  There's no way back down to the fun of mediocrity except by death.

[Bogre]

Permdeath is the main pillar of what makes ARM so harsh. And harshness is arm's RP. Permdeath does allow for better roleplay and realism I believe, but I don't believe there shouldn't be some cases out their where somebody somehow found the power to resurrect someone at some special time and place.

I.E. say some special sacred being gives you a blessing or something...whatever. Should be very rare if even at all.

[Cavus]

...but I don't believe there shouldn't be some cases out their where somebody somehow found the power to resurrect someone at some special time and place.

I don't have any information, but I hope our Imms would give this special ability to an uber magicker with some quota and restrictions.

[Marauder Moe]

If a ressurection spell were possible I'd expect that it wouldn't be available to anything less than a black-robed templar.  For all most of us know, maybe black robe templars or sorceror kings CAN ressurect people.  If it were in the hands of any PCs (perhaps with the exception of very old and VERY trusted sorcerors) I can say without a doubt that the game would suffer.

"Whats that?  Lord Fancypants got assassinated AGAIN?  Alright, go find Lord Templar Fixemup or Vivaduan Bob please."

[HardCarbon]

If a ressurection spell were possible I'd expect that it wouldn't be available to anything less than a black-robed templar.  For all most of us know, maybe black robe templars or sorceror kings CAN ressurect people.  If it were in the hands of any PCs (perhaps with the exception of very old and VERY trusted sorcerors) I can say without a doubt that the game would suffer.

"Whats that?  Lord Fancypants got assassinated AGAIN?  Alright, go find Lord Templar Fixemup or Vivaduan Bob please."

 Either that or its where all the mutants come from   "Its ALIVE!!!!!!!"

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's the permadeath that makes Armageddons RP so good, it's the fear of dying that puts a different approach to things. With death being permanent you don't get hunters going "Hey, wanna go see if we can take down a bahamet" because they know that might be risky. Knowing their vivadu elementalist buddy can just ressurect them at any time would, in my opinion, degrade the level of roleplay and realism of death. "If you die.. I'll bring you back." Just isn't a phrase I ever wanna hear spoken in armageddon.

Permadeath is the part of the game that makes me think twice before I do anything dangerous, I like the thrill of knowing I could die at any moment.

[Majikal]

that anonymous kank above is me, not logged in. Oops.

[SanityAssassin]

Conflict generates the best roleplay and storylines, whether it concerns love, mystery or intrigue.  Even though most conflict does not result in physical violence, violence is the ultimate form of conflict resolution.  I am sure many of us have noticed that MMORGs and MUDs with restricted (or no) PvP really suck.  Without a definite way to resolve conflict, most roleplay devolves into chit chatting, cybersex, and the like.  I think we can all agree on this.  

Since conflict is so fundamental to a good storyline, even limited PC resurrection cheapens roleplaying.  With no permanent consequence to one's roleplaying choices, what does it matter?  Even if a character dies as a result of roleplay choices, s/he/it will be raised and eventually good as new.  Even level loss and other penalties can be overcome by whacking mobs or what have you.  With resurrection, there is little consequence to one's roleplay unless you somehow become a pariah.  

I came here from a MUD that, while roleplay enforced, has no perma-death.  There were all sorts of baroque rules surrounding death that to ensure the following didn't happen:

You either have the victims immidiately identifying their murderers, or you have to work out some kludgy rule to explain why they do not remember who murdered them, and then go around enforcing the rule since players DO remember who did it even if their PC shouldn't.

It was a big pain in the ass.

That all being said, I suppose a sorcerer king could resurrect without changing the setting or game play for the worse.  After all, it is doubtful he would resurrect lowly PCs.

Resurrection turns the miraculous into the trivial.  That is one reason I prefer low-magic settings.  Game designers usually give little thought as to how magic will affect a living, breathing world.  Traditional cleric abilites in D&D are a good example of this.  Even a single, low-level cleric would keep hunger, thirst, and injury at bay in a small village.  When you consider how many clerics (and mages, and sorcerers, etc.) are in the world you'll find many people should enjoy a quality of life that rivals the modern era.  That's pretty inappropriate for most settings.

[Linedel]

Eh...

(Assuming having to have the body to resurrect.)

If you're an assassin in a world where resurrection is possible, and you leave the body in a location and condition that allows it to be resurrected, you deserve to be identified.

If part of your party is killed, you don't automatically get to resurrect them, even if you have the ability - you have to get the thing out of the way, or otherwise find some way to get the bodies out.

The challenges do not disappear, they change.  (Besides, if you're talking about "challenges" like "everyone would go kill mekillots if there was resurrection", are you really roleplaying?  What about pain?  I mean, damn, being nearly bitten in half would fecking hurt... you're supposed to be roleplaying that, too.)

I am in no way suggesting Armageddon bring in any form of resurrection... merely commenting to the original poster;s question that it is not permanent death that causes roleplaying, but rather an aspect of the world itself.