Death and closure

[Tmp]

I was just thinking about death in the game ... and just sometimes it can come so violently, suddenly, and unexpectedly. Yes, I know, an unplanned suprise death is a "feature" of Armageddon and its harsh world, but I was just thinking of a way of providing a little more sense of closure that actually makes sense ICly as well.

Psionics and the Way is a daily part of life on Zalanthas right, so what about the concept of letting a character that died send a single Way message before the Mantis head pops up. I rationalize it ICly as a last burst of psi energy right before death embraces you, sort of like when your life flashes before your eyes kind of thing.

It will automatically be successful (unlike normal Way communication) BUT, if the player is not online at the time, the message will still be lost. Also, filter could be applied to it (like when you're bad in languages) to make sure the message isn't exactly crystal clear ... a fuzzy, but powerful (due to the death experience) burst of psi energy to get your last words in, to your loved ones, or something like that.

I feel it's pretty consistent with the world of Zalanthas to have such things occuring ... thoughts?

[marilla]

I always thought that if you are linked with someone psionically at the moment of their death, it would be neat to have some sort of 'backlash'. Some 'creepy' feeling. Of course, to make it fair, that feeling could  also come randomly during regular mind link and sometimes not get through on the expiration day.

[Dan]

I don't really like it...

-DEAD-

contact bob


psi Steve killed me, quick, get him becuase he is going to loot this metal I found! He killed me behind the water tower, three leages east and two leages south of the smurf village!

~mantis~

See what I mean?

[Tmp]

Well, the concept itself is sound, and like I say, there's probably a way to balance it out so it won't be too twinkish. I already recommended putting a filter on it ... and maybe a max length which is really short?

So it'll be something like

DEAD-
contact bob (if bob isn't online, it fails anyway)
psi Stexe killxd me ...
~mantis~

I mean, if the player was already twinkish there's always other communication tools outside the game. This is just for a hightened dramatic tool for RP.

Or better yet, have a set choice of messages that cannot be modified and covers mostly what people want to say ... like:

"I love you ..."
"I'm sorry ... "

It's just that this kind of last burst psi thing fits in so well in this world ... a world where psionics exist and people use it regularly. It can be molded into a tool for people to get some closure in their lives.

[Marauder Moe]

I used to be a strong supporter of some sort of post-death interaction.  Either a message like this or some sort of system where you could float around your corpse as a ghost for a while.  The arguments against these types of things make a lot of sense, though.  When you OOCly know that you'll be able to have closure or get out some last words then you will probably have a different IC perspective on death as well.  You may be more willing to become a martyr or sacrifice yourself to save someone because you know you'll get to see how people react to the act, or in the case of this message-sending idea, you'll know that people will find out about it.  Really if you have a reason to ICly end your life for a good cause it should be for that reason alone, not because it'll feel good to watch people's reactions afterwards or it'll feel good knowing that your sacrifice will actually work.

Anyway, I don't see much point in making Armageddon death any less harsh.  Since you can't actually kill players, there has to be SOME motivation to keep your character alive, if at very least its because you know you'll not get any closure as a player.

[/sleep-deprived-been-up-all-night-writing-a-paper-ramblings]

[John]

I always thought that if you are linked with someone psionically at the moment of their death, it would be neat to have some sort of 'backlash'. Some 'creepy' feeling.

I agree, but not with death, with normal breaking of the Way. Such as if you fall unconscious cause your pathetic at the Way. It should be more abrupt or perhaps even more painful (the recipient loses some stun). I see when you normally break the Way, for your mind to at least be prepared so it isn't as sudden. However when you fall unconscious I see it as being quick and immediate.

Just my 2 'sid.

[captjak]

In Dennis McKiernan's books, the Iron Trilogy (hobbit rip off but still kinda good)  the elves there, when they died, the person closest to them would feel that they had just passed on.  Unfortunatly I think they also knew who killed them so that they could get revenge later.

Now twist this a little, you could possibly just twist it a little and have everyone have a person that you have noted like your objective that if you died a message would send to them like this....

You sense that the baobab-hued elf (mul, mantis, elf, halfling, dwarf, half-elf, human, blah, blah blah) just died.  

No arguements or anything, you just know that they died.  

Only bad side I see to that is that if someone went to talk with "bad guy a" in his "house of npc doom".  Then if the person was smart they would put two and two together and figure out who killed them, so perhaps not a good idea.

Just thoughts rambling through a waking mind... go for it

[John]

Good idea captjk but it would make other things in the game harder to do

[spawnloser]

Like, assassination maybe?

[Anonymous]

Okay what about something like people you put in your obj. thing just get this: A sudden burst of psionic energy enters you mind, flickers violently, and dies out as suddenly as it came.
See that way, they'll know someone died. But not who. And if they're friends with the other people you listed or in the same clan (maybe it can auto-send to all clan members)?? then they'd probably all be saying Woah did you feel that? and eventually they'd figure out who died but probably not right away so the killer has time to leave the scene of the crime!

[Quirk]

I don't know if I agree with the psionic burst on your deathbed to your best friend or friends, but I would agree that knowing that someone has died is unrealistically difficult.

Random example: Joe Bynner wanders into the Rinth, gets himself killed. Now, the Byn have a schedule, and ICly at least Joe ought to be sticking to the schedule, turning up for meals, training away - ICly no more than a week should pass without Joe's absence being noted and the assumption being made that he is either dead or deserted. OOCly, of course, people can't log on 24/7, they aren't really in game at all times, and if people don't see Joe round for half a month or more of game time they may well assume something has OOCly cropped up, especially if Joe's player doesn't usually spend all his time on the MUD. There is definitely an IC/OOC difficulty there, and it gets worse if Joe is a Byn Sergeant and people are trying to meet him to be recruited.

So, should all clans be informed within a set time period if a member dies or unclans himself or herself? Not necessarily. Amos the Kuraci spy goes deep undercover, infiltrating the 'Nakki militia, and can only contact his superiors on an irregular basis. His cover is blown and he is promptly executed. It will take rather longer for his superiors to conclude he is dead, as his reports are only occasional.

While successfully pulling off an assassination certainly isn't all that easy, what with the overpowered crim code, the aftermath is almost a non-issue. Your assassinated victim won't be missed for weeks, perhaps months, perhaps even years, unless of course the body is found. No juicy RP ensues over the odd disappearance of a famous merchant unless, of course, the assassin is kind enough to post a note on some board discussing said merchant's lack of presence (and if caught posting that note, the danger of someone abusing the OOC knowledge is considerable).

Sadly, I can't think of any clever automated solutions off the top of my head to cover both the case of the PC who is a regular fixture in their clan and the PC who exists on the fringes with only a few friends, let alone the "bar regular" PC without a clan. In any case, I don't believe the clan that the PC belongs to should be notified at once, but only after a week or two has passed to let the absence sink in.

One possibility would be to have the imms post on clan boards when a clan member passes on or deserts - but their workload is already considerable, so this is hardly an optimal solution.

Quirk

[My 2 sids]

What if we had different code when trying to Way someone who was dead?  "You feel no connection." type thing because its not like their mind is resting.  ICly the people closest to them would probably notice their absence and OOCly a lot of stuff can happen when someone just can't log in and then people start to wonder if they are dead.  If a player doesn't log in for a long time, this does affect people ICly because they assume death...I'd say to keep things ICly realistic we need to be able to know the difference between a dead character and a "dead player" ;-)

[crymerci]

I like parts of some of these suggestions, but none of them in whole.

It would be nice if, when you died while already in contact with someone, they got a message about "your link to xxx is abruptly cut off" or something.  Then they can suspect death, but know nothing about the circumstances or whatever unless you actually managed to get a way message off.

[Quirk]

What if we had different code when trying to Way someone who was dead?  "You feel no connection." type thing because its not like their mind is resting.

On the surface this would appear not to be a bad idea... however...

What happens when you've got several Susans kicking round Zalanthas? If one Susan enters the dead PC database, and you start displaying that message as a response to "contact Susan" when no other Susans are online then suddenly all the friends of the various Susans panic. Alternately, you could go through all the Susans who've ever lived and see if any are still alive, but then you have the opposite problem - anyone sharing their name with a live character who may not have logged in for a while will appear to exist on perpetually, and rumours of their death will be met with scepticism. Then there are the NPCs of the world... I suspect it would be awkward to implement, and only useful sometimes, where the name is unique enough not to be duplicated.

Quirk

[marko]

My own view is this - if you really want people to know you are dying contact them.  If you are killed with brutality the surprise would be so complete that your little mind burst probably wouldn't go off anyway.

Therefore - if you feel you are about to die, do your way (contact person, psi Fred is killing me).  A lot of people have done this successfully before.  You can do it, it just takes practice.  So, go out there and die a lot working on the timing and everything.  

If you are sending someone out and you think they may die simply stay in contact with their mind.  When the person dies you do get a message that your contact is broken.  'course, they could have logged off, but if you sent them off to do battle with the raiders of the wastes chances are that they died.

[Gorobei]

If someone logs off while you're in contact with them, you get no message, unless that's a new change.

[Barzalene]

No closure. When you die too bad, so sad. No afterlife. Not last words, no ammneds, just Welcome to Armageddon.

[JollyGreenGiant]

No closure. When you die too bad, so sad. No afterlife. Not last words, no ammneds, just Welcome to Armageddon.

I like it that way.

[Ayashah]

I always thought that if you are linked with someone psionically at the moment of their death, it would be neat to have some sort of 'backlash'. Some 'creepy' feeling. Of course, to make it fair, that feeling could  also come randomly during regular mind link and sometimes not get through on the expiration day.

I have rp'd backlash before. There was one pc that contacted my pc and was in mind contact until the moment of their death with my pc talking to them, getting instructions, etc. I cant go into details, even though it was awhile ago, but the executioner came in while in contact and they were 'disposed' of. Or so I assumed when one moment they are psi'ng its about to happen and trying to not completely lose it IC in the psi (which was great rp'ng) then the next there was nothing. In contact with nothing. Sooo, I took that into my own hands and played that my pc felt the mental 'death/denial of death' whatever is felt when disposed of.

Yea, it would be neat to get a backlash message but sorta hard to code I am sure when there are bigger and better things the imms are probably working on. I am not sure how hard it would be to code. One would have to take into mind if the person was in contact with another or not. If it was just the one not being killed in the mind of the one being killed, etc.

*ponders*