Postmortem Explanations

[BadSkeelz]

I've never played a Templar, but I have misinterpreted threats made at 3am as commands to kill.

[valeria]

I wouldn't support anything that gave people information right away. I think it would be fine, cool even, with a holding period.

People tend to use a year as a guideline because that tends to be about how long it takes for characters and plots to cycle out (with a few exceptions). The withholding for a year wouldn't be to prevent hurt feelings or whatever. Those already happen. The point would be to not spoil active plots with giving people explanations right away.

That's why I said automatically held for a year. It doesn't mean staff couldn't flag it to be held longer if the pc involved was still alive, or the plot was still active, etc.

[Tuannon]

I've never played a Templar, but I have misinterpreted threats made at 3am as commands to kill.

I remember a certain Borsail Wyvern Sergeant killing someone along these lines.. Oh the days of Ceylara.

[Dar]

Here's an idea. Upon death, you turn into an ethereal ghost with a sizeable chunk of hp and the limitations of ... your regular type of drov ghosts (cant go into specifics, because IC). That ghost exists until dead to usual reasons they normally die, or until they log off. Beings who are able to commune with ghosts ... get to commune with them in ways that are possible now.

Then it'll be left up to the player who killed him to give postmortem explanation, or at least to have a hint on it, or at the very least offer 'some' RP with the dead body that would bring the dead player closure.

This is of course up for debate. Perhaps allow the ghost to roam freely. This makes it harder for pull off silent assassination hits, but there are only so few beings who are able to commune with ghosts, the odds of finding one and somehow interacting is small, although possible!.

Have the ghost unable to leave the room of his death.

Have the ghost unable to leave the 'zone' of his death.

Have the ghost auto follow the person that killed him and unable to unfollow him except by quitting out and moving on to the next chara, or by dying to ways the ghosts die to.

Have the ghost be able to resurre ... naaaaaaah.

[Desertman]

[Jihelu]

If the ghost is Drov or Nilaz give them abilities to fuck with people c'mon.

[Saellyn]

Nope. I disagree. This would cause just as many problems.

[bcw81]

Not to mention that that's not how... I mean... Well it's hard to explain without going into specifics.

That's not how Zalanthas and magick work.

[Erythil]

TBQH I expect that staff often doesn't know and doesn't track how characters died, unless they were killed by leadership roles who are held accountable for their additional power and influence.

[Taven]

TBQH I expect that staff often doesn't know and doesn't track how characters died, unless they were killed by leadership roles who are held accountable for their additional power and influence.

Well, you're supposed to both submit a request and wish up (at least the latter) before killing people, and if you didn't submit a report before, you should certainly include it in a report after.

Not that everyone makes reports, but those are the general expectations when PK happens, as far as I understand it--unless it's a massive thing like a war/major battle, of course.

[Majikal]

YourPC died to Majikal in room #130912312, amen.

There's your closure. 


I dislike the room for abuse if something like this came into effect, part of playing a killer/assassin is complete anonymity and minimal knowledge of your pc's shenanigans being out there, that just as much ic as it is ooc. If word gets out ooc that your pc is causing problems for x amount of people or killed x amount of people then that's going to start bleeding into the game, it happens. So even if it was something so simple as a blurb 'your pc was assassinated', things could be assumed and a killer/culprit figured out. One more way of your pc killer getting outted on an ooc level that has potential of effecting future gameplay around your pc.


I've died and been hella curious as to why or who. As a killer, I value the ic anonymity as much as the ooc, unfortunately. I wouldn't trade the one to benefit the other.

[Jihelu]

I feel like if you die to sheer stupidity, like a room exploding due to the staffs causing Tek to blow up all of Allanak, you should get a message post death saying "Also Allanak exploded" or something though that might be hard to track.
Then again if staff does some huge shit like that they might already do that.
Probs not.

[Marauder Moe]

I don't think it's a rule or expectation that you report a PK or wish up before hand unless you are in a sponsored, leadership, or militia role.

[Majikal]

I don't think it's a rule or expectation that you report a PK or wish up before hand unless you are in a sponsored, leadership, or militia role.

It's definitely a rule and an expectation.

From WISH

When situations arise that may result in your character killing another player character, staff ask that you take the time to wish up. A quick wish along the lines of 'About to kill Amos' is all that is needed. This gives staff the ability to observe the situation. We understand that there may be times where wishing up prior just isn't possible.

From REPORT

If your character kills another PC make sure to include this in a report.

While not REQUIRED from non-leadership pc's to send in reports, pk reports are in good taste for both staff/victim if the victim follows up the pk with a request/complaint concerning the death.

[Saellyn]

It's not a "rule", it's an expectation. It's "nice" for you to wish up to let staff know, either before or immeditaely after the fact, and then to send in a report explaining the why. It's not REQUIRED, as per the rules, that you do so. It just reduces staff workload of having to track down a ton of logs.

[Akariel]

Think of me when you're murdering that guy.

I want to murder too, but I'm staff.
I can't do things like 'kill' or 'maim' you for fun like I used to do as a player.

Help me live vicariously through you, send in your PK reports today.

[Jihelu]

Think of me when you're murdering that guy.

I want to murder too, but I'm staff.
I can't do things like 'kill' or 'maim' you for fun like I used to do as a player.

Help me live vicariously through you, send in your PK reports today.

Don't lie to me.
I know you get to animate [REDACTED]

[Akariel]

Addendum: I now have total permission to commit warcrimes against Jihelu.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

I've never been truly OOCly upset by a character pk. I always give them the benefit of the doubt.

[Dar]

I once had this sent to me. i am still greatly thankful to Calavera for doing this.


Your Character Report request has been resolved.

In the shifting darkness of your fevered, poisoned dreams, you sense a shadow looming over you, many times the size of even the tallest elf. Something moves in the shadows, enveloping you, its touch as gentle as silk. You feel yourself lifted in the dark, limbs dangling uselessly, but the warm softness of whatever is touching you is unabating.

Gradually, the gentle touch grows tighter, more restrictive, more like binding ropes than a gentle caress. Something jerks at your shoulder, and your eyes flutter open long enough to see the following: a crown of gleaming eyes like jewels, staring into your own with an utterly alien, dark detachment.

This is the face that meets Rena as the last of his consciousness is burned away by poison and liquified by the fangs of a gigantic, mottled-orange spider as it welcomes him back to the shadows.

(OOC: Damn it, I didn't realise the poison would kick in that quickly. I meant to carry on this scene longer and I hope you had fun. Thank you for rolling with the punches so well.)

Calavera
Armageddon Staff

[AdamBlue]

I would like to see Drovians and Nilazi be able to turn into ghosts upon death, with Drovians able to hang around as badass phantoms that go around spooking people and Nilazi able to come back to life, but only after finding the corpse of a beast and defeating it's soul in the ethereal.

[Lizzie]

I would like to see Drovians and Nilazi be able to turn into ghosts upon death, with Drovians able to hang around as badass phantoms that go around spooking people and Nilazi able to come back to life, but only after finding the corpse of a beast and defeating it's soul in the ethereal.

You know that's make a great idea for returning sorcerers to playability as a main guild again. The previous sorc stuff - plus because they get (a) (b) and (c) ic things, they can now do that as well. But only once they're fully branched and discover the "master-craft sorc only" doodad that allows it to happen.

However if they're beheaded when they're freshly killed they can't return at all.

[Desertman]

I would like to see Drovians and Nilazi be able to turn into ghosts upon death, with Drovians able to hang around as badass phantoms that go around spooking people and Nilazi able to come back to life, but only after finding the corpse of a beast and defeating it's soul in the ethereal.

You know that's make a great idea for returning sorcerers to playability as a main guild again. The previous sorc stuff - plus because they get (a) (b) and (c) ic things, they can now do that as well. But only once they're fully branched and discover the "master-craft sorc only" doodad that allows it to happen.

However if they're beheaded when they're freshly killed they can't return at all.

[Delirium]

If you brought back full sorcs, no one with the karma would want to bother with a subguild sorc.

Guaranteed.

On topic... I try to give people a hint why they're dying when I kill them, but otherwise? Eh, we've all had abrupt deaths. Deal with it, grasshoppers.

[nauta]

A half-thought-out idea: The Tales of the Mighty Dead (Or: Curiousity and the Killed Cat).

(This won't address some of the motivations -- e.g., resolution-when-butthurt -- but it's loosely related.)

Summary A player-driven 'lost connections' thread / website, where you can post (using an anonymous or alternative account) various things like:

o Hey, I had a lot of fun playing with Bob during the summer of 2014.  Whatever happened to Bob?

o Hey, I played Bob during the summery of 2014.  I remember Sue, Joe, and Jim fondly.  Whatever happened to you guys?  Heck, what happened to me?  We were sitting around having dinner then bam lights out.  Anyone want to tell me what happened to me?

o Hey, I played with Bob for three months in the summer of 2014.  Bob kept scratching his left ear.  What was up with that?  (NB: It's not just about postmortem explanations.)

Goal / Motivations

o Bragging. For me, I do have this urge to share at least some of the story my PC was involved in - but I don't really want to taint my account with those stories - nor do I want to taint your account with your stories -- so anonymous seems to be the way to go on this.  I also really enjoy reading some of the stories floating around out there - Gage Gritshaw, for instance, Raleris, etc.

o Missed Connections.  What really motivated this: I was thinking about writing up a story about my time in X, and I was going through character reports, and there are a lot of characters in there that just disappeared, or whose motivations weren't clear, or who were just amazing characters, and I wanted to include them in the story, but there's really no way (other than this purported 'ooc grapevine') of finding them and following up with them.  I'm not into the 'ooc grapevine', if it even exists.

o Closure / Fleshing out stories. Ditto.

What form would it take? When I first started thinking about this, I kind of had the idea of a rate-my-professor style website, where you'd post the name of your character (rough dates and area) and people could comment on it.  Then I thought about a craigslist-style 'lost connections' thread, where you post some details, then continue to comment online.  Then I thought of a reddit-style AMA thread. I don't know, someone more clever than me about the technical can probably flesh out the details.  Hopefully the idea is clear enough.

Importantly, I think this would only work well (for me at least) if we used anonymous accounts or alternative accounts, and it'd have to be somewhat regulated - being a part of the gdb would force the various rules on the discussion.  (Just as a personal thing, I've found discovering the gdb account of people I play with to, more often than not, somehow affect things.  Of course, that's while I'm playing... maybe it's different after a year has passed.  I'm still inclined to think this would only work well if it were anonymous / unassociated with gdb accounts.)

Anyway, there's the idea (some vehicle for discussing previous characters in an anonymous environment) and there's the implementation (what form it would take).  

Is the idea at all feasible?

Would it have to be anonymous?

How could it be implemented?

ETA: If we were feeling really adventurous and staff wanted to add some code, a pulldown or vehicle for sending in questions to dead PCs would be neat.  It could be a pulldown on the Request Tool: Communicate with the Dead (monitored by staff) where you would open up a request with a dead PC, and they could respond or not, and it'd be all there so staff can make sure there's no lies or whatever.  (Or something.)