Rping Deaths

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Urik
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Rping Deaths

#1 Post by Urik » Sun Aug 28, 2011 3:06 pm

So, right now I just want to get the opinion of the player base of geas on how well people rp deaths. There was a problem like this when the asrals fought the crusaders. People wouldn't care that they died 3 times and just kept fighting.
After Urik dies, I act uneasy for a while and not as confident. Instead of engaging a ton I give my patrols less room. If you die in game, that is supposed to be a tramatic experience, not just (ask luthien resurrect me). I have seen one or two deaths rp poorly lately.

So I want to ask if its fair that if someone doesn't rp their death accordingly that other forms of punishment can be used.
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lili
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Re: Rping Deaths

#2 Post by lili » Sun Aug 28, 2011 4:58 pm

I think it just depends. Not everyone is going to openly rp how their char feels and what they think with everyone that passes by. I think if someone is like 'Oh well I died' and goes to try again and keeps dying and doesn't have any sort of rp other than that, Then yeah I could see it being a complete disregard of rp life. But there are some people whose rp, like mine, who will try to rp a strong face in front of others but break it down more to people she really knows once she is away from everyone else. Its just like saying 'I'm not scared of you' and the moment they leave, the person turns and says, 'He scares me to death'.

I think if you think someone isn't rping death fairly, just take them into OOC and find out before trying to get them punished for things you might not see.- at least that is what i think.
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Re: Rping Deaths

#3 Post by Drayn » Sun Aug 28, 2011 5:56 pm

I tend to vary my response depending on the circumstances of the death. If Drayn dies against a random spod NPC goblin or something he doesn't tend to be that bothered.

If he's tortured, sacrificed and has his corpse defiled he's a lot more affected. The first time he got sacrificed he was totally wrecked. He tends to zone out now, he becomes dissociative and vacant for at least a few IC days. Generally I role play being affected seriously until I log out for a night. But I still make a note of long term effects. He'll mention being affected by nightmares etc. to people he trusts.

Sometimes, especially if he was sacrificed, he becomes suicidally reckless, desiring a "good death", but thus far he's not actually deliberately killed himself.

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Re: Rping Deaths

#4 Post by Zehren » Sun Aug 28, 2011 6:13 pm

I have RPed my deaths very differently between both characters and causes of death. One I had just fuddle everything up for a while, some have turned rather forgetful. I do not generally pay too much attention to deaths towards NPCs, unless something specific happens.

Last time I died, though, I tried have my character all teary and dreary, but the other PC rushed off rather immediately. 'Twas quite disappointing in that regards.

The worst aspect of death at current is the item loss, and the need to retrieve those objects quickly. Often after deaths, the participants will agree where the other can retrieve his/her/its items. That makes so little sense to me, the other person is dead, don't trust on him/her/it coming back alive! You see those shiny coins? yeah, you earned them (by slaying Evilone334).
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Eluriel
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Re: Rping Deaths

#5 Post by Eluriel » Mon Aug 29, 2011 12:45 am

On a similar note, I've kind of wondered how people rp "permanent" deaths, like "I was orphaned when I was 5." Couldn't Taniel/Evren/Asral/whoever just resurrect your parents? We get resurrected all the time. What makes a god decide who gets resurrected and who doesn't? Does the mortal make the choice not to come back? What makes a death a serious death, or should they all be treated that way? Anyone have any thoughts on that? Should I make a separate thread?

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lili
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Re: Rping Deaths

#6 Post by lili » Mon Aug 29, 2011 1:19 am

The way that I rp it, and how I've rped it since I've started rping years ago. Is simply that the god chooses to bring you back for some purpose. The life given is an ultimate gift by the god. Sometimes they don't come back, it isn't because they didn't have unfinished things to do, but because that new life may have had an impact on something else the god had planned for someone else. Every time I've died my char always wonders if this will be the time that she's not granted life, death scares her, but dying well and dying for what she believes in, is a gift to her god. I see a lot of people (on other muds too) that quickly run and get a rez and get their things, I like to hang around as a ghost if it looks like the other person is going to Rp with me.
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Re: Rping Deaths

#7 Post by fernao » Tue Aug 30, 2011 9:12 am

Reaction to a death mostly depends on circumstances, character, guild and faith in my eyes. For Fernao, being an Asral priest, death means that he didn't do the best he could, hence he has disappointed his god, hence he must strive even harder to please his god by overcomming the one that killed him.
Of course that can mean either try again immideately or, depending on opponent and circumstances, wait, train, recover and try again when the odds are a lot better.

As pointed out by others, not everything that goes on inside the mind of a character, or player, is shown or shown to everyone that might be concerned.
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Re: Rping Deaths

#8 Post by adanath » Thu Oct 06, 2011 4:35 pm

Adanath is one who will die and rush back in to fight, but that is how he has been conditioned. The Lord tells him there is no shame in death only in defeat. He is not afraid to die, and frankly is not afraid of anyone, if he dies, especially at the hand of Sathos, he gets angry if anything, bashes more things to get stronger, eats more boar, and then hunts the dirty evil Sathos. I know a lot of people say, you'd be more scared of death, but I try to rp my deaths, its just when Adanath is on the sac rock, he isn't going to be crying and moaning. He is going to be spitting in the face of his enemy as his Lord tells him to. I suppose it just has to fit in with the all around persona of your character. Someone who is very battle hardened I would expect for it to affect them less and less the more battle hardened they get. Especially if it is one with fanatical causes.

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Re: Rping Deaths

#9 Post by Zehren » Thu Oct 06, 2011 9:10 pm

The answer to how to roleplay death is to turn your character into a philosopher for a month, and the only thing that must be philosophed is mushrooms and gravy.
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Re: Rping Deaths

#10 Post by luminier » Thu Oct 06, 2011 9:55 pm

Zehren wrote:The answer to how to roleplay death is to turn your character into a philosopher for a month, and the only thing that must be philosophed is mushrooms and gravy.
+1
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Re: Rping Deaths

#11 Post by tanriel » Thu Jun 19, 2014 1:03 am

So I want to ask if its fair that if someone doesn't rp their death accordingly that other forms of punishment can be used.
The problem is that if a player does not want to RP a death, there is no way he or she can be made to want to roleplay.

Technically, a death is only lost time. The "currency" is online time (playing time), recovering effectively only takes time.

I have lost track how often my character died. Once you died the 100th time, you start to unavoidably care less and less.

The punishments can be a problem because they have a rather long downtime and you are handicapped during that, whereas if you get fully ressed (a complete respawn), you can continue playing without handicap, other than lower vitality (weaker character). If you lose one arm, you can't swing the big axe, but if you respawn, you can instantly swing again - this is a problem IMO with how punishments are setup. The assumption was that the punishment is not as severe as death, but from a technical point of view in regards to "efficiency", this is not quite so the case if you ask me. I'd take the death (OOCly) because it is less annoying than the punishment.

This has been a problem even years ago, where a player would repeatedly respawn and suicide into Sathos (or rather, the Satho trap, or perhaps both). There was no chance of winning, so it was only a nuisance.

Incidents like that led to Abharsairs old note about the meaning of death and guildwars.

I don't think this has ever been resolved.

As harsh as it may sound, and I know many players won't like it, but I believe there should be ways as to make death more severe after a while (say the fourth or fifth death in 2 or 3 days?). That could include that additional respawns take significantly more and more time before the ghost can reform into a body, and temporary and even permanent XP loss as well.

You also must not forget that there is also a psychological component - e. g. in a guildwar or war, even if you die, what advantage does it give the one who was defeated IF he wants to continue fighting? Defeat often leads to a worse outcome IC, so you can just either continue playing, avoid getting killed - or getting killed, yet continue to play as if nothing has happened.

The only way to effectively cause option 2, e. g. to make them realize that the fight is useless, is by making the whole game dynamic so that when certain "keypoints" are reached, adjustments are made automatically including the guaranteed risk that the guildhalls were to be disabled, at least temporarily. Of course this should take constant effort by the eventual victor side, too, and it needs to happen without pre-determined winner scenarios, as that would be unfair otherwise.

For instance, five successful raids could lead to much higher prices, weaker NPC guards, and so forth and so on (determined for all guilds, and achievable for all guilds too; that would require the game to become more balanced in general, and balance is hard to achieve or retain). Note that this refers to "winnable" wars, players might well still decide to continue fighting, and I think that in that case, why should they not be allowed to do so? There is no game rule that says "after 10 defeats you have automatically lost".

In practice, I also think that it was not really a big problem because in general, some guilds are at permanent warfare or at least PvP anyway. I think it becomes a much bigger problem when wizards get involved and make arbitrary changes.

And if you look at PO from the Order, while they should in principle be the best in PvP, they actually don't want to PvP non-stop. The game is not interesting to them if it were the case, and OOCly I can understand that completely - just from an IC point of view, it won't make sense for every guild or character to want to become peaceful.

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Re: Rping Deaths

#12 Post by luminier » Thu Jun 19, 2014 2:33 am

While I agree with you Tanriel, in my experience people have been pretty decent in RPing deaths since that forum post by Abharsair.

With the exception of a few Asrals who tried to argue that "Asral doesn't give up" (which is quite flawed IMO) I've never had a really bad experience with people RPing death badly.

But as you say, the currency for death is time. And people HATE when they die because you lose so much time and it makes emotions run a bit wild.

Myself, I have died in almost every way possible so I pretty much never die unless I deserve it. After dying the 1000th time, it really doesn't matter to you as a player anymore, and you can pretty much roleplay along with it.

TL;DR die a thousand times.
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Re: Rping Deaths

#13 Post by Delia » Thu Jun 19, 2014 5:43 am

I think the whole roleplaying death should start at roleplaying not wanting to die in the first place ;) Even if resurrection is a guarantee.
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Re: Rping Deaths

#14 Post by glorfindel » Thu Jun 19, 2014 7:07 am

I have had a while when I logged each of my deaths, it's been _too_ many to count. Especially those who know my char from the early days... Glor used to die a lot, especially during the times when dying costed you XP you could not replace. I am quite happy this is not the case anymore, as it keeps the frustration to a controllable level, esp. in situations where your death is unavoidable. OOC can I only say one thing: Do not take your death too harsh, your char will recover, you don't loose too much, but time... and here comes the IC part.

IC, as Delia suggested, the target should be for your character to not wanting to die in the first place. Sure, your char has died a lot of times and I usually try to go the route of saying that the more often you die, the more of you stays behind in the afterworld, making you feel less bound to the world. However, this should rather make you more afraid of death, then less. I would suggest treating death IC as if you would never know if the gods will bring you back.

It certainly isn't the easiest thing to RP, but after death and resurrection, I usually try to have my char more desoriented, have him rest more often, mutter about feeling weak and uncoordinated, having his hands shake irregularly till he forces them to stop... I think resurrection is a very painful and traumatizing experience on top of the actual death and should be treated as such RP wise. You are forcefully reborn into a new version of your old body. That can't be pleasant.

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Re: Rping Deaths

#15 Post by Delia » Thu Jun 19, 2014 7:51 am

Or even that you are shown to the gates of the paradise or any other afterlife you were promised and have strived for only to be forcibly pulled back to a world of flesh and blood and misery and pain.
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Re: Rping Deaths

#16 Post by ferranifer » Thu Jun 19, 2014 10:31 am

Delia wrote:Or even that you are shown to the gates of the paradise or any other afterlife you were promised and have strived for only to be forcibly pulled back to a world of flesh and blood and misery and pain.
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Re: Rping Deaths

#17 Post by luminier » Fri Jun 20, 2014 12:00 pm

You'd think that after dying and coming back like 1000 times luminier would just be a wreck. sort of like beric dondarrion from "a song of ice and fire" series
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Re: Rping Deaths

#18 Post by isengoo » Fri Jun 20, 2014 6:53 pm

I think Isen has died less than 10 times, not sure what you guys are doing wrong :P

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Re: Rping Deaths

#19 Post by mazarmormuk » Mon Jul 21, 2014 1:11 pm

As i feel slightly affected by some comments here, gotter add that it depends pretty much on the situation for me.

so it is indeed the question:

how do you roleplay deaths in guildwars when you got the choice of
1, reattack and get your neck broken within two seconds (against full skill and armour)
2, give up your guild, its rules, its meaning as demanded by the counterpart

well, i decided for the first, might be overly stubborn, hell he s a dwarf, heh, but it was the only way to openly show the given unbalance.

wonder how a taniel cleric would roleplay to either die again and again or swear the temple would never hunt undeads again.

finally the guild indeed developed, and finally it was found out that my char had the size of the human and the weight of a halfling and was set to normal/normal for a dwarf, solving the crits.

As a result i mean, judging roleplay should always first question how much the situation/system is playable at all and what alternatives there are.

about widows n orphans, my thought is that yeh go to a priest after death and beg a god to frame the soul with a new body. well, most times you are successful, but not everyone is that lucky or in favour of a god. Additionally a soul might not always like to creep back into an uncomfortable frame.

please feel free about constructive comments and criticism of the above, i just wanted to explain why i played that way back then as it was mentioned in some notes.

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Re: Rping Deaths

#20 Post by luminier » Tue Jul 29, 2014 4:30 am

I don't know if I agree with your two choices for RPing a death in a guildwar.

Isn't reattacking someone who just killed you a sort of "faux pas"? Certainly it is against the roleplay -guidelines- (i.e. -not- rules) I believe.

You mentioned giving up your guild and its rules as demanded by the opposition. Perhaps I am misremembering, I do not recall a situation in which the Asralites were at war and were asked to give up their guild and their rules. The only reason I mention the Asralites is because I understood you were speaking of personal experience as an Asral Priest.

As a Crusader I butted heads with Asrals a few times. One very badly handled war in particular was a war that I instigated because a traitor to the Crusaders was not only accepted freely by the Asrals, but then actually was allowed to rise through the ranks enough to be avatar (the leader of the Asrals for those uninformed).

I think things were done by both sides that should -not- be done in the future. It certainly sparked a topic on the forum about how war should be RP'd and such. I don't think a final idea of how it should be handled was ever discussed. But I would prefer that war be handled in a more gentlemanly way in Geas certainly.

I feel like attacking another persons guild hall while they are offline is really lame. Just because you -can- doesn't mean you should. It doesn't offer an RP interaction and it is really nothing more than a dick measuring contest (if I may). This is definitely something that I look back on and feel disgusted with myself that I actually took part in it so many times.
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