MMO Design Thoughts: Permadeath
Permadeath. Permanent death in an MMO. Why in the world would you want such a thing? Simple: 
emotion. The more you're risking, the greater the emotion — the greater the fear when you're risking it, the greater the sorrow if you lose it, and the greater the joy if you succeed. The World of Darkness Online will naturally have a horror element, which means sometimes you should be afraid in the game. Also, "danger" is one of the four descriptors of what the game is trying to evoke (power, danger, mystery, romance).
Permanent death is something that just isn't done in MMOs. But it is explicitly on the table for (most) tabletop games. Why are people comfortable with it in the latter, but not in the former? And would it be possible to have permadeath done in a good way in MMOs?
I think the answer to the first question is, "Control." In a tabletop setting, the game master has control over the game, and if you're sitting down spending several hours with your group, you presumably trust the game master not to just gak your character willy-nilly. In an MMO there is no such control. In PvP games there are definitely griefers. But, I think such control could be added to MMOs. Which brings us to the second question.
To answer the second question, I do believe it could be done well in an MMO. I think that permanent death should only be able to happen under certain circumstances. In a tabletop game, your character generally only dies under a few circumstances:
- You have really bad luck. And even then a good game master will give you an out.
- You do something really dumb. Again, a good game master will generally try and give you some hints that this might not be the best plan of action.
- You want your character to die. It does happen.
- Your game master is a dick.
I think that these could be translated to MMOs quite nicely. So for each of the points above, here's how I would address it in an MMO.
- Mechanics can be put in place to eliminate "bad luck" as a cause for permanent character death.
- This is the area that has the most potential. Maybe if you kill and loot other characters enough, it flags you for permanent death.
- No brainer, but again there's potential here. In most MMOs you just delete your character if you want them gone. But what if there were some way to go out that had a cool story, or that set up the story for your next character coming in?
- In this case it would be the game mechanics themselves being the dick. Make it so that certain circumstances, which are within the player's control, must occur before a character can die permanently. As one example, maybe if you go on this certain storyline/quest, you risk permanent death — with great reward comes great risk.
To put this in terms of the World of Darkness MMO, I think permadeath is assuredly feasible. I would do it thusly:
- Overall, anyone can permanently kill anyone else, at any time. This requires not just putting them into torpor, but making a choice to take it one step further.
- If you permanently kill someone else who isn't the subject of a blood hunt, you yourself become subject of a blood hunt. Congratulations, now everyone is gunning for you because they'll gain prestige by killing you, and they won't have any negative consequences for it.
- In certain areas, have NPCs come to the aid of any character being attacked by another. Maybe a cop comes to arrest the offender. Maybe some gang bangers decide they don't want other people bringing attention to their area.
As a possible alternative to permanent death (or better yet, something that could be added on), perhaps the "fog of ages" from Requiem can be tweaked. This is the effect that causes vampires to forget things (and lose blood potency) as they grow ancient. Well perhaps when one is killed really good, they don't actually die but it puts this process into fast-forward, and you lose some blood potency, which could also cause you to lose some abilities. The only thing I don't like about this route is that it smacks of the bronze age of MMO days wherein you lost XP if you get killed. However, I think Vampire has a great built-in mechanic for this and it makes sense to use it.
Personally, I think the biggest problem is that the player forms a personal attachment to the character. Like you said, permanent loss is a good thing; it makes risk meaningful. But "permadeath" has such a negative stigma. I think you could have a "reincarnation" where you lose all XP/levels/gear/whatever but still have the same character, and people would find it significantly more palatable than "permadeath" just because, hey, at least I still have my character, even though from a game mechanics standpoint it's really the same thing. And if you're going to soften the loss anyway (let the new character use some of the old gear, etc.) then there's just no reason to call it "permadeath."
Permadeath will sink the MMO. Tabletop is virtually free (ignoring the price of Community Funyuns). Unless your DM/GM is a real dick, he's not going to kill your people. If he is that much of a dick, then you (hopefully) haven't been playing long enough to lose anything valuable.MMOs cost money. If people invest money and time into something, they expect to have a product to show for it…like a Level 80 Death Knight. Hell, Blizzard, Sony, and the others are so aware of what reward-retention means to people that they'll keep a character indefinitely, knowing that someone will come back just because they have a Level 80. Hell, I did. I know this is your baby and you love the guys, but this is a horrible idea, a flaw that will set this game aside from all its competitors.
Hmm..having a 5th Gen Malkie get jumped and die…yea i am not liking this idea…..maybe have them in a state or torpor for some time…that could work, but perm death…No, I will not go back to playing an MMO that will be as frusterating a EverQuest
Does your opinion change when you think about LARPs? That's really more analogous to an MMO than tabletop, and in a LARP when you hit final death, then you roll a new character. Though admittedly the more I think about it, the more I think that it should only be under certain circumstances that permadeath should occur, if it were to be implemented.What if there are no levels? EVE Online has a system that's almost like permadeath — you don't actually lose your character, but you lose pretty much everything that you've spent time and effort building up.And what if it's only under certain circumstances that it can happen, which you must knowingly and willingly walk into (i.e. it's an option)?I'll also point out that about 75% of fan suggestions regarding this at The Grand Masquerade were, "We want permadeath to be on the table."And just to be clear, I don't work for CCP, so I personally have no power to determine one way or another whether permadeath is an option or not.
(Final note: I turned on the RSS feed thing you showed me Sami, but apparently forgot to turn off the Notes importer. >.<)
Imagine, your waiting for your group. People have not logged on yet, suddenly someone higher than you walks in permdeaths you, then your screwed. I am not sure how they plan to make this work however, permdeath just doesnt seem like something i would be on board with, more so if it is not something made up as an option, more as an angry kid who got yelled at by his teacher in HS.
Again from my response above, "And what if it's only under certain circumstances that it can happen, which you must knowingly and willingly walk into (i.e. it's an option)?" Also, "…the more I think about it, the more I think that it should only be under certain circumstances that permadeath should occur, if it were to be implemented."
I apologize if I come off as spikier than usual – waiting for this alien facehugger to burst out of my chest feels a bit like being held under water. I can't imagine the player appeal to reward loss, particularly in a game environment where growth-through-grind is the norm. As to the option for player suicide? Well, I suppose it would be no different from the delete option. Maybe if a character could be sacrificed and his experience absorbed into another being – that could have player appeal. Re: RSS feed – I did the same thing.
Hmm… I'd suggest 2 server-types and see which one does the best … one where Permadeath doesn't happen (but maybe some form of Torpor of fog of ages or something….. and then one where you have the full mechanic …..that way you see if your audience is ready for something like Permadeath, I've dealt with a couple of interesting ideas in MMO, permadeath being one, and the other is similar to the Dynamic Evens which have been talked about for Guild Wars 2 ………… crap man, the Caprica tv show deals with permadeath some and it's "if you die you can never play again" …. I played under an ST who had no problem killing you off if you did something stupid…and we all understood that and played under him for 3+ years … I had something like 5 characters during that timeframe but I sometimes linked up the old character with the new or got the old's stuff, etc. etc. … and because of that, I'm a sneakier player these days
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