Death, Corpses, and Verisimilitude

[jinrohbrigade]

Without the remains persisting, I'm worried a lot of players sweep their defeat under the rug. If everyone saw your corpse bashed remains in the Hub, it's next to impossible to refuse it ever happened.

I get that concern though honestly if someone pulled that move I would just write them off as not being worth wasting time on ever again.

At the same time PVP with big story consequences should usually have witnesses right? I mean it's rarely going to be 1 on 1 in the shadows unless it's perhaps an assassin. Point being there should be more to the victory than collecting heads.

I think part of the idea is that even if the character/player is flippant about their death, if everyone in the area has seen the remains (as opposed to a much smaller subset that saw the fight) then then overall feel will be different.

Also I think it should be said that if Bob doesn't respect his own death, that doesn't mean he is shying away from further fights. It could even be the opposite. So his opponent may not have a good method to disengage with Bob.

Though I may not be the standard player to weigh in on this; if my character is killed/bashed in PvP I'll generally take a couple of RL days off playing them to respect the death so I don't run into the situation of my character seeing their own corpse.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

There's 2 things going on in this thread.

One of them is taking trophies, which I think is good/important. I've seen people post bounties, and others bring in heads to claim the bounty. If people are being obnoxious and putting heads into shops, report it. The team's made it clear they do not want this happening. Heads even decay so they can't sit in your bag forever.

The other thing going on in the thread is the pile of bones remaining on the ground. That serves less of a purpose other than to humiliate people. Which I know some people are really into, but I've not heard of it ever contributing to the overall narrative of the server. If anyone has examples they can share them, but I've not heard of any RP coming from there being a pile of bones on the ground.

The pile of bones being there isn't going to make people RP that they died. If people aren't going to respect death, they straight up won't no matter what. I've seen characters say they'll keep dying and coming back to life to attack someone. I've seen people RP on top of their own pile of bones, even emoting to reflect that they're standing on top of themself. It 100% is a mentality issue.

[Watchful Glare]

There's 2 things going on in this thread.

One of them is taking trophies, which I think is good/important. I've seen people post bounties, and others bring in heads to claim the bounty. If people are being obnoxious and putting heads into shops, report it. The team's made it clear they do not want this happening. Heads even decay so they can't sit in your bag forever.

The other thing going on in the thread is the pile of bones remaining on the ground. That serves less of a purpose other than to humiliate people. Which I know some people are really into, but I've not heard of it ever contributing to the overall narrative of the server. If anyone has examples they can share them, but I've not heard of any RP coming from there being a pile of bones on the ground.

The pile of bones being there isn't going to make people RP that they died. If people aren't going to respect death, they straight up won't no matter what. I've seen characters say they'll keep dying and coming back to life to attack someone. I've seen people RP on top of their own pile of bones, even emoting to reflect that they're standing on top of themself. It 100% is a mentality issue.

In complete agreement. I would too enjoy a 'proof of victory against X' in whichever form that takes, as others have proposed. It serves the same purpose.

+1
Agreed with OP and supplanting posts.

Those who treat death cheaply will do so regardlessly if their head is on public display or not. That is a player attitude issue, not a mechanical one.

This is correct. I have never seen a scenario in all my time in Arelith where remains have brought anything positive, or meaningful of any sort by becoming a permanent landmark. So long as it remains a feature, it will continue to happen.

[Ork]

There's countless times a location of a bashed corpse has sparked roleplay. The permanent remains are an opportunity for players to discuss what occurred.

"I saw the remains of Gary the Necromancer outside the gates. What happened?"

"It was awful, lad. Truly awful. [cue story of Gary's demise]"

Corpse bashed remnants are often all anyone talk about when they've occurred in an area people congregate around. Humiliation is in the eye of the beholder, and anyone that has been corpsebashed in a public venue now has opportunity to roleplay around their recovery, the events, and resolution to people curious about what happened.

I'm honestly surprised to hear you say corpsebashing bones never spawned any roleplay.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I've never seen RP come from it personally. Just people screenshotting and sharing it OOC and moving on. Or people standing on top of their bashed remains. Or the wombo combo of people sharing screenshots of people sitting on top of their own remains.

[stoneheart-]

I'm with Ork on this one, seeing a bashed corpse almost always in my experience leads people to find out what happened. However, the rp provided by the pile o'bones is not always good as time and again people walk by their bones to report their own "murder".

Bashing definitely does serve a purpose, but it should be better. Interacting with corpses should be a dialogue, even if it's just to pick it up. You should be able to do things with the body other than just taking a head, like putting the body/head on a pike (replaces the corpse with the appropriate fixture that exists in the module now) or burn/bury the body, leaving no trace and disposing of it more humanely. With the former, you could even include a dialogue to take the body down from the pike and maybe raise it if possible. Etc. It's not always about embarrassing or shaming someone, that's ridiculous thinking. Make disposing of bodies more immersive/interesting, don't take it away.

Anyway, there are munchkins on each side, just report them if you think behavior one way or the other is inappropriate.

[Amateur Hour]

Agreed, remove the heads. I'd be curious to hear if any good roleplay has come from the item.

I have a particularly memorable moment of this, when a friend-turned-enemy came up to my character and dropped the head of their friend directly in front of them. It spawned roleplay in the moment, and it later spawned some intense (platonic) emotional roleplay with the victim later.

It can be done well. But I admit I may be a special case, since I've generally had really good luck with getting good RP out of being on the losing side of PvP.

[Watchful Glare]

There's countless times a location of a bashed corpse has sparked roleplay. The permanent remains are an opportunity for players to discuss what occurred.

"I saw the remains of Gary the Necromancer outside the gates. What happened?"

"It was awful, lad. Truly awful. [cue story of Gary's demise]"

Corpse bashed remnants are often all anyone talk about when they've occurred in an area people congregate around. Humiliation is in the eye of the beholder, and anyone that has been corpsebashed in a public venue now has opportunity to roleplay around their recovery, the events, and resolution to people curious about what happened.

I'm honestly surprised to hear you say corpsebashing bones never spawned any roleplay.

Riveting roleplay.



Makes me chuckle every time.

But at the same time I've come to the realisation it comes at the cost of everything else, and the existance of it ultimately erodes things. This person is not going to roll. You're going to see them up and walking again. And it's rarely used for more effect than pointing and laughing. And then moving on. With or without the notes, in case that wasn't clear. Unless you were already involved, in which case you already know of it or will hear of it soon enough.

Fights in the Hub where low-levels are bashed, they're not going to log out of the game and stop doing writs because they forgot they were in the thunderdome. They'll just hit respawn and go back to the writ-giver and come to and from.

I could very well be having that same "They killed Gary the Necromancer today" without having to see his bashed body in the Cordor Square or next to the Hub Portal, irremovably.

Heads I don't find so jarring, since they can have an actual narrative purpose. But I would not dislike it at all if they were replaced by some other kind of token.

[perseid]

Something I haven't seen brought up, that I may simply be mistaken on since I've never done it myself, is that I believe heads can be used by settlement leaders to identify unknown pcs can't they? My understanding was that settlements have an npc who will react to heads w/ a statement that includes the pc's name. Whether this is/was necessary anymore, assuming I understood the dynamic correctly, seems debatable given the current rule to not outright perma-conceal your pc name against everyone all the time.

[IanPatron]

Why not make it spawn a head AND a finger? Best of both worlds and all that.

[Aren]

Without the remains persisting, I'm worried a lot of players sweep their defeat under the rug. If everyone saw your corpse bashed remains in the Hub, it's next to impossible to refuse it ever happened.

+1

[riffraff]

Agree with a lot of sentiments in this thread!

As a newbie, I didn't even know that's how corpse stuff works (in terms of them remaining if bashed), so I was very confused when I wandered into Cordor to do my errands a few days ago and saw a PC skeleton on the floor right next to the notice board and everyone just ignoring it. It was one of those super awkward situations where I felt I had to react to it because my character would, but felt stupid because I guess everyone else had seen it and moved on. That made me feel like death was cheap. Bodies in the streets? No worries, get on with your day! It did also make me wonder, both IC and OOC why it hadn't been cleaned up, so the fact there is no option for this seems bizarre. It very much seemed like everyone was treating it as not there.

If people are concerned about there being no remains of the murder, I feel like the suggestions of alternatives left behind if the corpse is cleaned (like bloodstains) make a lot of sense? It's a lot easier to RP gore having terribly stained the cobbles than a full on corpse just left to rot in the street. And like others have said, if people are going to be blasé about their death, it's gonna happen regardless of the mechanics.

Bashing definitely does serve a purpose, but it should be better. Interacting with corpses should be a dialogue, even if it's just to pick it up. You should be able to do things with the body other than just taking a head, like putting the body/head on a pike (replaces the corpse with the appropriate fixture that exists in the module now) or burn/bury the body, leaving no trace and disposing of it more humanely. With the former, you could even include a dialogue to take the body down from the pike and maybe raise it if possible. Etc. It's not always about embarrassing or shaming someone, that's ridiculous thinking. Make disposing of bodies more immersive/interesting, don't take it away.

This is a really awesome idea, gives a lot more scope for RP.

On the heads thing, the taking of fingers (or whatever) instead at least sounds a lot cooler from the perspective of the deceased character. It would be great to be brought back and RP I'm missing a finger or something to show that it indeed did happen and the jerk who murdered me has my finger on a necklace somewhere. Or they took my eye so I need an eyepatch or a prosthetic. If death is supposed to be treated as part of the narrative (and of course it should be), things like this add to both parties' narratives. You killed them, you won, you got your trophy and can use it to taunt and enrage, but I get something to be angry about IC besides the very OOC-feeling act of dying and getting better again.

[The GrumpyCat]

The question about Remains is a bit of a difficult one. I myself am on the fence on it, honestly.

The question about trophies I think is different.... I think most people agree that there should be some sort of trophie sure, it's just that Heads is a really wierd one.
The only argument I have seen about why 'Heads' is 'well isn't it wierd you can identify someone from a finger?' And I agree, it is. But I think having multiple copies of the same persons severed head - or a person being shown their own severed head is even /wierder/ honestly.

Further more, I think it's easier to respect and run with the roleplay of loosing a finger via being bashed, than loosing a head. In most circumstances I think I'd find it difficult to make anything of say, being shown my own severed head, or referring to that time someone cut Bob's head off and Bob wandered around after... On the other hand circumstances where a finger is the trophy, I can easily run with.

But - Hold on. How about an entirely new idea?

I should warn you, this may be vastly unpopular but:

Right now the problem with the Assassins guild is that there's really very little - if any - reason to take out a contract on anyone who isn't a settlment leader. What if we fixed that?

Step 1) Remove all trophies from bashing corpses. Maybe you still get the remains? IDK. But there are no trophies.
Step 2) The Assassins guild now has a list outside it, the 'Contracts Filled' list - this gives the names of all those that have had their contracts collected of late
Step 3) This means that if you want someone dead, and have guarantee of deed done - the only real way to do that is to hire Assassins to do the job. Giving Assassins another new and interesting utility.


Again - probably an unpopular idea, but I put it up here as a point for talking about.

Really, to stress, the only thing I feel super strong about, and really hope happens, is trophy Heads get replaced by trophy Fingers.

[-XXX-]

It's possible to create an interesting story arc around losing a finger and reclaiming it.
Doing the same with a head can be a little more challenging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GhCtawsg54

[AstralUniverse]

Without the remains persisting, I'm worried a lot of players sweep their defeat under the rug. If everyone saw your corpse bashed remains in the Hub, it's next to impossible to refuse it ever happened.

+1

[-XXX-]

Without the remains persisting, I'm worried a lot of players sweep their defeat under the rug. If everyone saw your corpse bashed remains in the Hub, it's next to impossible to refuse it ever happened.

+1

+1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInkxbvlCs
Does some sad tiny skeleton really make any difference there?

[TooManyPotatoes]

Not personally a fan of the unremovable remains. As implemented, it’s fairly jarring to see as a new player, and seems to have an overall detrimental impact to the setting. Why take death seriously when everyone appears to be ignoring the dead corpse about two feet away from its fully healthy and conscious owner, or whenever you ask someone about why a corpse is rotting in the street they shrug and answer it happened days ago and no one knows how to remove it. Apparently cleaning duties are in purview of the Gods.

To remedy this, I think it would be helpful to let a bashed corpse be cleaned up (ideally tie it so a player can't clean up their own character's remains). Put a timer on it if you must. Make it awkward by requiring crafting points and the use of the cleaning implements item available in game. Alternatively or additionally bring in a crime-scene investigation placeable complete with police tape that officials in settlements can place. Give more tools to interact with the bashed corpse. If it becomes an ordeal to remove, but is still possible, then at the very least someone will be around to attest to that characters death.

Honestly though, the placeable thing is a bit sucky as most areas where bashing occurs are at fixture limits anyway.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Step 1) Remove all trophies from bashing corpses. Maybe you still get the remains? IDK. But there are no trophies.
Step 2) The Assassins guild now has a list outside it, the 'Contracts Filled' list - this gives the names of all those that have had their contracts collected of late
Step 3) This means that if you want someone dead, and have guarantee of deed done - the only real way to do that is to hire Assassins to do the job. Giving Assassins another new and interesting utility.

I'd rather have a way to put bounties on people without using the assassin guild system. Good aligned people wouldn't use the assassin guild, for example. But they would put bounties on dangerous criminals. I really hope trophies stay.

[perseid]

The question about Remains is a bit of a difficult one. I myself am on the fence on it, honestly.

The question about trophies I think is different.... I think most people agree that there should be some sort of trophie sure, it's just that Heads is a really wierd one.
The only argument I have seen about why 'Heads' is 'well isn't it wierd you can identify someone from a finger?' And I agree, it is. But I think having multiple copies of the same persons severed head - or a person being shown their own severed head is even /wierder/ honestly.

Further more, I think it's easier to respect and run with the roleplay of loosing a finger via being bashed, than loosing a head. In most circumstances I think I'd find it difficult to make anything of say, being shown my own severed head, or referring to that time someone cut Bob's head off and Bob wandered around after... On the other hand circumstances where a finger is the trophy, I can easily run with.

But - Hold on. How about an entirely new idea?

I should warn you, this may be vastly unpopular but:

Right now the problem with the Assassins guild is that there's really very little - if any - reason to take out a contract on anyone who isn't a settlment leader. What if we fixed that?

Step 1) Remove all trophies from bashing corpses. Maybe you still get the remains? IDK. But there are no trophies.
Step 2) The Assassins guild now has a list outside it, the 'Contracts Filled' list - this gives the names of all those that have had their contracts collected of late
Step 3) This means that if you want someone dead, and have guarantee of deed done - the only real way to do that is to hire Assassins to do the job. Giving Assassins another new and interesting utility.


Again - probably an unpopular idea, but I put it up here as a point for talking about.

Really, to stress, the only thing I feel super strong about, and really hope happens, is trophy Heads get replaced by trophy Fingers.

I like the concept here a lot, it'd essentially give assassins a monopoly on kill confirmation receipts that they could offer the bounty poster as proof of a finished job. I think my main concern (not that it's a big one) would be the normalization of assassins being hired simply to act as tag alongs so that a hunting group could collect trophies themselves (not the worst outcome even if it happens though) .

[The GrumpyCat]

Party at the Forest has a good point though - that said I find it a slightly interesting moral/philosophical question - what's the actual differncer between 'bounty hunters' and 'assassins?' Other than one wearing black more and in a stylish manner . Why is 'hiring bounty hunters to kill Bob the necromancer' = good. But 'Hiring assassins to kill Bob the Necromancer = bad?'

I'm not putting this forth as a point to defend my own idea I hasten to add, it's just a sorta... wierd thing when you think about it.

[magistrasa]

it's just a sorta... wierd thing when you think about it.

It's really not that weird when you actually think about it. Bounty hunters would presumably have a more palatable code of ethics compared to assassins. They only hunt criminals or dangers to society. Assassins are indiscriminate killers. When you take a contract with the guild, you're funding and empowering an organization just as likely to murder children as anyone else.

Kinda like how when you buy Nestlé products you're funding a modern day slavery operation. Similar vibe.

[Morgy]

Tokens prove you killed someone, if it’s a concern that people will deny it happened - which, by the way, persist through resets unlike remains.

There’s too many reasons why having a bashed up pile of bones that can apparently be identified by anyone, is silly, if you ask me.

‘I want to prove this person died, so I’m going to mash up their corpse so much it’s impossible to remove, but you can still tell who it is!’ - Just doesn’t cut it as a cool/fun/realistic reason to keep this mechanic.

[Ork]

A lot of posts are coming at it like there are only 2 sides, but there is a crucial 3rd - the bystander. If all that remains of a conflict is an item, how will the bystanders learn and become involved in these conflicts? A lot of roleplay is passive requiring players to find hooks to buy into a story.

I remember poignantly one of Seven's characters doing just that. Learning of a conflict, investigating the conflict and generating roleplay to extend beyond just the two parties attributed with the battle. I'm fine with changing things up, but I don't want us to lose the ability to have outsiders join into a narrative through passive clues.

Also, there's always bad roleplay man. There's always someone that is going to stand on their corpse and point at their killer. But, just because these events exist doesn't mean we remove the possibility of quality roleplay occurring. If you're not seeing that through bashed corpses, congratulation it is now your responsibility to make the roleplay better.

A great roleplayer uses all tools to create and maintain inclusive stories - even with the mechanics they don't really like.

[magistrasa]

congratulation it is now your responsibility to make the roleplay better

Good Post Good Post Good Post Good Post

[Morgy]

People can learn of the conflict by reading the news, overhearing conversations, seeing well-played RP tensions developing. These are all interesting and player-unique ways of learning about what has happened.

A corpse on the floor doesn't really tell you anything except someone got corpse-bashed on that spot. As a bystander, that's all you get from that.. If the only thing that comes from that killing, was the reactions of people seeing the corpse on the floor, I don't think there's really much interest from the players actually involved in that scenario - The killer who might want to claim their triumph/justice publicly, the victim who has been 'wronged' or wants to recall the tragedy, or the witnesses who want to report it themselves with song/as a crime/call for action.

Blood/Unidentifiable remains seems like a better option, if we need to have any kind of sign of battle. I think taking someone's head AND smashing their corpse to show it off for 24hrs is a bit much though, and is consistently more poorly used than it is cleverly used.