How long can you last...

[lilmynx]

Hello 

I just made a character and got her approved, but haven't played her yet. I'm new to Armageddon, but not to RP.

First of all, let me say I made my first character with the understanding (or even intention) that she will probably die.

BUT! I wanted to know if it's unrealistic to play a character with the hope / aspiration / expectation that they will stay around for a long time in order to pursue meaningful RP with the people you make connections with.

It appears nothing is really guaranteed, and the possibility of imminent death always lurking on your mind does give some value to the RP you do make.

But if I were to settle into Armageddon for the long term, I'd hate to keep remaking characters because...what if I like this one character more than all my others, and they end up dying?

I suppose it challenges your creativity, which is never a bad thing. But sometimes you just want to log in with your "main", talk to/interact with people with whom you've cultured fun or competitive (or naughty) relationships with. It sure would suck to lose all that progress by a random death.

I guess my question is... is there a "safe" way to play in which you are *mostly* assured you won't die? And still be fun?

Thanks and I look forward to maybe meeting you all in game

[Nao]

You can play it safe, of course. One way to do that is to never leave the city.
This is why a lot of clans have restrictions on leaving the city. You will still die eventually, but if you manage to get your basic needs met (get food and water) it might take a lot longer. There are characters in game that have been around for RL years.

However, I've found that the game is a lot more fun and interesting if you do take risks. I tend to be overly careful and end up with long-lived characters, but it does get boring.

[Hauwke]

If you get lucky, you can end up having a character that is almost impossible to get killed just through simply playing them long enough, there is at least one character I know of that has been in play for RL years.

[Molten Heart]

.

[BrainySmurf]

The longer you live, the more likely you will be to continue living, most likely. Eventually, especially for combat oriented characters, you will get to the point where barring some egregious error or fringe accident, you won't ever die (this tends to happen around 30-40 days played in my experience).

However, at that point, the one thing you want is also one of the most likely thing to kill you -- RP. You'll get your way into some sort of plot that goes poorly and you'll die. You can always die in Arm, even from pretty mundane things like accidentally walking the wrong direction and falling a half mile, which is a classic Arm death. You can lose 150 days played characters instantaneously that way. The other half of that statement is that there have been 150 days played characters before, which relates to several RL years. And despite all that play time they died anyway.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, the more you play your character and that character improves, the more the constant fear of death recedes. But you're never free from death even when you're a superpower, and death happens so fast at the 'end game' most of the time in Arm you barely have time to process the mistake you just made before you see a mantis head a lot of the time. But that's the beauty of the transient.

It's gonna hurt bad.

[WarriorPoet]

I played a high-risk combat character for 2 rl years. I have seen others last as long and longer. Sometimes much longer.

I get attached to my long-term characters. When they die it hurts like hell. That is why I keep playing.

[Jihelu]

My first character was a human pickpocket thief.

I survived I think 3+ days*, which apparently is a lot. I could have survived more but I suicided, hint: Don't do that.

You can survive. People generally just die because:

A: The code is kinda hard to get down and you don't have a realistic expectation of what is strong

B: You don't have an expectation of what can kill you

C: Game is hard.


* IRL days, hours played. Not 3 IRL days went by or 3 ig days.

[ShaLeah]

My first character lasted 5 IC years. She went from a year of near starvation to nearly two years in the Byn and finally beautifully betrayed by the notorious Kojiro Fale who sold her out to her Templar lover's other lover who was also a Templar.

I've had characters last no time and still feel glorious because of the epic shit they landed in.

Try not to play to win the longevity pat on the back.  Play to *live*.

And welcome to Armageddon.

[deskoft]

I tend to have long-lived characters (I think). The way I play them is that THEY have a fear of death and _I_ try to step out of that fear. It will take a while to develop. The absolute worst way to play this game is to fear the death of your character yourself. That makes losing that character painful. It will still hurt especially when you pour effort into the personality and the character and they're in, oh, so much good shit! And you have an idea of how you want them to live and they way you want them to die! And then they die in an absurd, random way. Then there's the deaths where you don't expect them and get great roleplay. And then the wtf happened deaths. An article recently said that playing Armageddon is simulating death.

The game will feel natural. I don't feel that the game is designed to die. Nor do I feel that death is 'too often.' I feel death is realistic. We are playing in a very realistic theme where people die. Who dies? The people that SHOULD die. That is what you have to keep in mind. If you are a noble, you are pretty assured that killing you is WAY harder. If you are an elf thief, the decision of you dying pretty much rests on someone of note saying "they dies," and stopping it will take a lot of wit. That thought helped me. I try to play my character as they would be, with their fears and trusts. I make them make mistakes, but I also make them over-roleplay scenarios. A trip to the wild _is_ a trip to the wild. I make them cautious and over-analytical unless the situation doesn't bid itself. That way they also reduce accidents in the wild to half-assing travel, but it's a realistic reaction my character has. But then I also have characters that trust people, and trust in this game either leads you to strong alliances - or most of the time to die. It's the way it is.

It's a great game. Maybe instead of saying the game simulates death, I would say it simulates life. Just like in life, the game is more than often assured to surprise you in the way your life ends. Could you predict how you will die now? Probably not. Can you predict how your character will die when you create them? You can guess; you have a good chance of failing. Most of the times it surprises me how a little decision can lead to it, and be snow-balled into you dying.

[lilmynx]

Thanks everyone for the explanation, insight and shared experiences!

My next follow up question is - Are there any sort of established factions in the game that you can become a part of? For example, I've read about the city Templars. Can someone become a Templar, or are they NPC only?

Any other factions in general to get involved in?

[lilmynx]

If you are a noble, you are pretty assured that killing you is WAY harder.

This is intriguing and a good example of something I would be interested in. Can one become a noble somehow, and if so, how?

[sleepyhead]

Nobles are nobles by birthright. The way to play one is to respond to a role call on the GDB in the Staff Announcements section and getting your concept selected by staff. It can be a pretty challenging and exhausting role, though, so I'd recommend waiting a while before trying one!

[azuriolinist]

Oops. Someone got ahead of me!

Anyway, there are plenty of other clans in-game your PC can potentially work for! For example, in Allanak, there are the T'zai Byn (a mercenary company), the Great Merchant Houses, and the Arm of the Dragon (the city's military) -- just to name a few.

[chrisdcoulombe]

I have a mix of characters.  Staying alive for a long times has its ups and downs.  Sometimes its fun to red shirt.  Its fun to make long term and short term characters.  I spent about 20 characters learning how to die.  Be it rp death, or code pc or code npc.  Those characters ranged from 3-30 days played.  Which if you are playing heavy is like 2 weeks to six months per character in the real world.  Then I spent another 10 figuring out what I want out of my character.  In that time you discover more ways to make your characters different.  How do I rp a flaw that my character has, what are my tells for a lie...ect.   You make 3d characters and no matter how long they live you will have a good time.  There is no winning Armageddon, just making your character better, and making them make wise or dumb choices to tell a story.  Dying is fun, but you don't have to die soon.  Likely your characters death will be untimely though.

[Cind]

I just went ahead and spent a bunch of characters learning where stuff was in the wilderness, like important holes that are important because you will certainly see them later. In fact, one of those holes now has code to tell you, Hey, you're about to fall into this hole, because at one point a bunch of people, including several long-liveds, fell into it without realistically meaning to. Those who survived did so by sheer luck. I remember playing that day and listening to my mage friends reconnaissance it.

Yes, but being clanned alone, even if your clan takes you out to the wilderness, is a decent barrier to death, simply because someone who wishes to kill you risks the clan's ire by attempting to do so. Then becoming a leader, living a long time working there, or becoming highly ranked will afford more protection, especially if a douchebag joins your clan and tries to take you down. In my experience most of the traitors don't stay long in the clan before revealing themselves as disloyal. A few do though.

Being an undesirable, a term actually used in the world, makes it more likely, I've seen it too, for you to be messed with and/or killed. Mindworms will be more likely to mess with your head, people will skellebaine (hallucination poison) you more often, or other poisons, they'll take from your apartment more often, they'll try to steal from you more often. A light form of undesirableness is being a foreigner in a region other than your hometown, so be careful. This is in the docs, but it is especially unwise to be caught committing a crime somewhere other than your hometown. This world is very hard on crime; think the old Arab way of cutting off thieves' hands kind of hard.

Also, there have been a few exceptions, but most open clans will only take humans. The always-exceptions are Kurac and Byn, who will take anything but witches. House Oash takes witches. Do not expect to rise very high as an elf, breed or half-giant. Dwarves are a little better. As elves do not ride, they would be taking up precious space becoming a Byn sargaent, and therefore do not become them.

The safest-safest, in my opinion, is a crafter for Kurac. There's simply fewer people walking into the outpost and Kurac completely controls the place. Crafters do not have to protect anyone like guards do, and are not as important as the merchant branch (which deals with management, player orders and mastercrafts.) Aides would make more as they are in the employ of nobles, and arguably are safer, but noble Houses tend to accidentally drop their poison into each others' tea, and a good, lower-risk way to get at a noble without killing them is, you guessed it, killing their aide.

Whew, I was on a roll there. Still, risking death is a lot of fun. A big part of my play these days is doing X to get Y, and X is fairly dangerous--- but it makes my sessions a lot of fun.

[MarshallDFX]

Welcome!

You can be a templar, but you have to start as one.  It's a rolecall that gets put out and you apply.  But lots of other factions available to commoners!

I hope somebody has pointed you to Nauta's rework of Mansa's beginners guide

http://armageddonmud.wdfiles.com/local--files/start/Mansa%27s%20Beginner%27s%20Guide%3A%202nd%20Edition.pdf

My first character died in the 'rinth shortly after creation I think.  I probably attacked an NPC.  But one of my first characters I played for about 65 days played (RL year+).  Mostly because of being clanned and cowardly.

[Grapes]

Ahem, there HAVE been elven Byn Sergeants. I saw one myself, but it was the result of a role-call. The problem is, you won't often see most players respect the value of a city elf in a merc clan, because riding, so getting to Trooper, much less past it, is going to take an extra-special something.

That said, it can hurt, very badly, to lose a PC you are invested in. There are not many words I can give on that, other than to say, that's what makes the game real. Say you have a mate, it's that, dirty, one-toothed, one-eyed salter named Amos. Amos has a rich history, stories to tell of his cousins, aunts, uncles, past lovers, over time it goes from ICly thinking, well, it makes sense for my PC to latch onto Amos, as they have coins, and boots worth coins too, to OOCly thinking, Amos is so intriguiging I log in just to see what salty joke he'll dribble out of his nigh-toothless maw.

Spoiler alert, Amos is going to die, and you might be with him the moment he DOES die, which means, your PC will probably die too. It's important never to write off any PC as a fixture of the surroundings. Each of them is an undiscovered angle of story with a definite expiration date, except you can't read it because you're a Zalanthan. The only "winning" to possibly be experienced in the game is being included in the stories of others. Make the most of the time you have, and when it's gone, explore other facets.

[BrainySmurf]

My Byn sergeant on my very first character during the gith invasion of Allanak was an elf lady, to continue this non sequitur.

My following several years dalliance with ignoring docs on human-elf intimacy was no way related, honest.

PS: I'm better now.

[Grapes]

My Byn sergeant on my very first character during the gith invasion of Allanak was an elf lady, to continue this non sequitur.

My following several years dalliance with ignoring docs on human-elf intimacy was no way related, honest.

PS: I'm better now.

So srry for getting us scrabbed, bb. -Amos

[Dar]

There is a multitude of factions out there. Most factions tend to impose certain restrictions on your freedom of movement and action. Hint: Those restrictions are designed to keep you alive.
So joining them is actually a superb way to survive with your first characters.

To answer your main question, there are players who had their very very first character survive a long time. Over 1 RL year even. But those people are very few. For the most part it's not because we're all such murderous maniacs. But because a person gets bored and decides to go take a stroll on the wild side, leaves the city walls, to ride into the wild. They are feeding vultures within the next 10 minutes. This is so common, that most people in leadership position dont even bat an eye when it happens and are more concerned in recovering that piece of sigiled leather that signified the dead person's entry level belonging to the faction.

But generally. If you create a character that is capable of enduring some periods of low time, without the need to entertain yourself by hacking and slashing wildlife. You can survive a great amount of time. Make a crafter/passive spy. Join a faction. There are a lot of factions that revolve entirely around social arena. Politics and trade. That faction will either teach you the ways of life, or loan you out to teaching factions (Byn or Atrium) to teach you ways of life in a mostly safe environment. In general, the less your life revolves around spilling blood, the less likely you are to have your own blood spilled.

Eventually, once you grow influential/annoying enough to start crossing other people's paths. You may start encountering possibilities of assassinations. That could happen for various reasons. You could get mugged and be non-cooperative. Your actions are blocking someone else's desires. You are affiliated with someone of High Birth and someone wants to injure this person. Yet due to various social reasons, the only way they can do anything to harm them, is by killing 'you'. That happens and ... that's a way of life. But 90% of the time, these types of interactions are actually fun and you'll enjoy them. And 75% of the time, you'll be able to get out of being killed, by being cooperative enough.

All in all. If you're capable of enjoying this game, without going out into the wilds. Your survival rate increases 10x. But it never reaches 100%.

[Potaje]

I have kept a character for around 2 rl, years with I believe over 250+ days in game played. Others for around a rl year with everyday play. I point those times out because I didn't just make those characters and log in only once a month, it was more or less everyday and for a long while there I would play many hours throughout a day.
And these were not, playing it safe, type characters. Playing battle types and rinthies. So its very possible to be long lived and involved in plots and the edgy parts of life.

[Razzbane]

My first pc survived 7 days (2 zalanthian months), he died only cuz of my silly mistake and unlucky meeting with PK pc :p

[Bogre]

Longest have been 2.5-3 years ('05-08), 1.5 years and a number close to 6 months-1 year.

Plenty of short lived characters but having a char for an exceptionally long period of time isn't impossible.

[stoicreader]

I have kept a character for around 2 rl, years with I believe over 250+ days in game played. Others for around a rl year with everyday play. I point those times out because I didn't just make those characters and log in only once a month, it was more or less everyday and for a long while there I would play many hours throughout a day.
And these were not, playing it safe, type characters. Playing battle types and rinthies. So its very possible to be long lived and involved in plots and the edgy parts of life.

I want to be like you. Can you make me a sneaky survival guide?

[Hauwke]

I have kept a character for around 2 rl, years with I believe over 250+ days in game played. Others for around a rl year with everyday play. I point those times out because I didn't just make those characters and log in only once a month, it was more or less everyday and for a long while there I would play many hours throughout a day.
And these were not, playing it safe, type characters. Playing battle types and rinthies. So its very possible to be long lived and involved in plots and the edgy parts of life.

I want to be like you. Can you make me a sneaky survival guide?

The easiest way is to simply be lucky enough to make it past a certain point with your combat guys, past that point just about nothing can reliably kill you. Sure, going on a Byn contract where there are arrows flying could get you dead, but nothing stock-standard will straight up murder you. Of course, there are those moments where you walk into a cave and look around to find you arent where you thought you should be and just end up getting destroyed by a fall or a critter that just about no one could solo.

[650Booger]

I stored my first character as it seemed unlikely anything would ever kill me.  this was largely because I didn't know how to become involved in plots, and spent all my time crafting madly by myself in a crafting hall.

[JustAnotherGuy]

My first character was at like 15 days playtime or something, had 10 large in the bank, and was working with an Indie Hunting group that was doing very well for myself.  I had felt like I had got to the peak of the character... I stored him.  Man I wish I knew then what I know now and what I could have done with that character. 

You can make any character live long, but there is always the chance of death anywhere.  If someone wants your character dead, they will figure out a way... trust me.  There is a way for anyone to die anywhere.  It's apart of this game.  Dying IS apart of this game.  When the risk of death is so low, to me the game isn't what it should be, that risk of death should always be apparent.

[Delirium]

One of the biggest mistakes long-lived characters make is to stop taking risks.

Risk-averse play leads to stagnation and boredom.

[Miradus]

One of the biggest mistakes long-lived characters make is to stop taking risks.

Risk-averse play leads to stagnation and boredom.

In the 2-3 years I've been playing:

144 characters. 14 of them stored.

The rest of you are pikers. Play Armageddon the rogue-like. Antagonize other people. See what's 4 rooms off the road. Whisper your assassination plots instead of Waying them. STIR UP CONFLICT.

As many problems as this game has, if I want to live a long time, I've got non-permadeath muds I can go play for that. If I want pure storytelling and drama, then I've got to come back to Arm despite having quit several times. But if I focused on longevity, I'd be bored shitless.

I've seen the depths of the Grey Forest. I've been tortured to death by the Soh. Murdered when I manifested my secret magick in front of superstitious tribals. I've seen a Templar wipe a tear from her eye. I've killed for money, for spite, and for fun, and been killed for money, spite, and for fun.

My BIGGEST pet peeve of the game is not karma or any other shit. It's people who don't risk their cushy positions. They hoard the few positions of power for RL years, logging on only in their safe spots for 15 minutes at a time or for parties.

Play the game. Take risks. Or go play something else with a SAVE GAME function.

[Riev]

My BIGGEST pet peeve of the game is not karma or any other shit. It's people who don't risk their cushy positions. They hoard the few positions of power for RL years, logging on only in their safe spots for 15 minutes at a time or for parties.

In fairness, there is documentation in place now that characters in powerful leadership positions HAVE to be around for RL years in order to "progress". You certainly CAN be the quick-flame Templar who gets on people's nerves and ends up dead, but its not really supported lore-wise. You spent years in an Academy, learned to wield the awesome power of the Sorceror King, only to die in a month because you're actually some crazy psychopath? Government Spooks should've caught that well beforehand. And if you want to join the Ministries, you have to be around for a RL year. That's a lot of longevity.

[Derain]

If you need pointers to living a long time just let me know.