The Amendment to Fugue Rules seems flawed

[Morgy]

Recovering from death can be meaningful RP if you want it to be, and knowing who struck you down doesn’t actually add anything to that part of the RP (weakness, injuries or other disorders you might choose to RP).

If you do not want to pvp, then learning a few quick tricks can get you away 90% of the time. This tends to involve haste potions, time stop scrolls/grimoires and things like acid bombs.

I think the re-occurring issue is that, as others have pointed out, people have been more comfortable letting their PC die than fleeing. Sometimes I think it comes down to people thinking they will be labelled as ‘afraid’ ooc, when actually it makes a great deal of sense to run away IC. I never saw anyone being too stubborn to flee from losing fights in a dungeon that was too much for them, which hints at player vs player pride to me.

Death needs to be more weighty in Arelith, so it actually shares meaning for everyone. Having a victim approach to tell the story of their death 10 minutes ago, perfectly coherently and without any sign of disorientation (often listing exact phrases and spells/abilities chronologically used), is just about one of the most immersion-breaking situations I could witness.

Good change. Arelith is a dangerous place.

[AstralUniverse]

You are allowed to know information leading up to your death but not the actual PvP and the person who struck you down.

I think this line should be used over the other because it reflects the spirit of the rule better and is more lawyered against loopholes.

[Yvesza]

You are allowed to know information leading up to your death but not the actual PvP and the person who struck you down.

I think this line should be used over the other because it reflects the spirit of the rule better and is more lawyered against loopholes.

Absolutely this, it's clear, concise and fits the spirit of the rule.

[perseid]

You are allowed to know information leading up to your death but not the actual PvP and the person who struck you down.

I think this line should be used over the other because it reflects the spirit of the rule better and is more lawyered against loopholes.

Absolutely this, it's clear, concise and fits the spirit of the rule.

It seems fairly vague if anything no? For example, if you're allowed to know the information leading up to the fight then is it illegal to infer who your murderer was from that information? There are a lot of situations a person could likely guess their murderer simply from knowledge of who was present since not all characters are equally likely to suddenly attack you.

[Spriggan Bride]

It seems fairly vague if anything no? For example, if you're allowed to know the information leading up to the fight then is it illegal to infer who your murderer was from that information? There are a lot of situations a person could likely guess their murderer simply from knowledge of who was present since not all characters are equally likely to suddenly attack you.

Could be two conditions... If you're in a battle vs multiple characters you don't remember who delivered the killing blow but you remember a battle.

But if it's a single attacker one on one you remember nothing at all.

Bonus effect, encourages 1 on 1 and stealthy kills with no witnesses instead of gank squads.

[perseid]

It seems fairly vague if anything no? For example, if you're allowed to know the information leading up to the fight then is it illegal to infer who your murderer was from that information? There are a lot of situations a person could likely guess their murderer simply from knowledge of who was present since not all characters are equally likely to suddenly attack you.

Could be two conditions... If you're in a battle vs multiple characters you don't remember who delivered the killing blow but you remember a battle.

But if it's a single attacker one on one you remember nothing at all.

Bonus effect, encourages 1 on 1 and stealthy kills with no witnesses instead of gank squads.

Multiple people involved is another scenario that's vague. If two groups fight what is the expected etiquette? Since in such a scenario the limitation on remembering your killer is much less clear. Even if guessing at your own killer based on permitted memories is discouraged for example, is it fine for two people involved in the same fight and slain by different combatants to guess at who was involved based on eachother's input? And if not then to what degree is comparing memories allowed to be useful?

[Hazard]

I think as long as people aren't going up to someone and saying "Susan killed me." it will be fine.

Even in a world where people can be brought back from the dead, it's still a ridiculous thing to have a murder victim report their own murder. Certain conditions need to be met to bring a person back from the dead, depending on the spell/method used, and if no one has found your body I like to imagine it happened off-screen by a random npc background character and that's how you ended up at a temple/climbing out of a grave.

We could try to make death more immersive as a whole by changing a few small things. I'mma list them because I've had just enough to drink to convince myself all my ideas are great.

1. Remove/Reduce named hostile named NPCs. They enforce the cringe atmosphere of "Hurr, it's Arelith (: None of us can really die! This place is different (in a bad writing sort of way).

2. Fiddle with spawn points, so that instead of always climbing out of a hole in a ground (a miracle/mystery but not so bad) there are also some rooms with injured/patient (like the old Radiant Heart temple used to have in Cordor). Waking up here after a fight or something was just what people naturally gravitated towards, for themselves and a place to bring others. Would be good to just wake up in such a place by default too, so that the implication is 'you were brought here and saved, somehow, by someone.' instead of the implication being 'I can't die. No one can die. Death is dumb and I am smart.'

3. Culturally (as a server) try to make a push towards treating a 'murder' as an attempted murder/assault if the victim is no longer dead, especially if the circumstances of their revival are a mystery. We played this way on another server, and I just thought it was a cool difference, and so everyone else has to think that now too, thanks. The implication here is that coming back from the dead isn't expected or just 'normal', and so if you don't have a witness who actually found your body and revived you, for all we know you were just really badly injured and recovered, because that sounds like better story-telling (to me) than, 'This guy killed me, probably! I got better."

4. Mutual seriousness. If the server would like players to take their owns deaths more seriously, then the server also has to take 'killing' and 'server deaths' more seriously. What do I mean by this? I don't know. Hold on while I figure it out. Sorry guard players going to use you as a hypothetical scapegoat (disclaimer, not complaining about real event. chill out.), but let's say a good aligned character sees a criminal. They're not putting their summon away! Augh. Let's just kill it, it's only a summon- Okay. Already we've made an assumption that this creature isn't a real creature for whatever reason and that it's alright for a 'Good' person to just end its life because of a local law (Psst. This isn't goodly behaviour.) then the owner maybe gets angy and fights you too, oh no! Obviously now you must defend yourself and kill the owner, however .. Your actions have caused one possibly two ungoodly deaths now. A lot of things could have gone differently so that this small thing did not end in 'DEATH' something that should be taken seriously. With the way the server rp culture is atm, this is all fine, and the guard won't care, won't have their alignment corrected to reflect their actions, and is very unlikely to be punished by their superiours for escalating a situation to the point of 'killing'. This is psychotic/evil behaviour. As for 'server deaths', that comes back around to named NPC bosses being too common, and the things NPCs might say to imply death isn't a big deal. This extends to DM events too, sorry DMs, but there have been some events where dying and killing can get a bit silly. Seriously consider the weight of having a character see their friends die before their eyes, or being forced to kill a person in questionable circumstances.

5. Big ask, but I think it would be awesome. We've made XP penalty for death very low, so low it can be ignored. This has the great benefit of giving players the courage to do whatever dungeon they want and exploring and wheeee~ If they die it will be okay. However, this has the downside of giving players the courage to do whatever dungeon they want, and exploring and oh no, now it isn't so special, serious or scary. Personally, exploring was more fun in the past when if I die, it would genuinely hurt. XP gains are super high now, I don't think we need to keep the neutered XP penalty of ye olde days. It can be bumped up by a few tens of thousands probably. This would encourage people to be a bit more careful of death, and less mindless sprinting through areas, who cares if you die? lol. Got to see the new area told all my friends where the good shit is got the attunement points lets goooo! It was a good idea to get people engaged, but unfortunately (imo) it contributed to our communities shift away from high quality roleplay server, towards a more 'theme-park MMO' server that has 'Stay IC' requirements.

6. That's all I got.

7. Susan killed me.

[JustMonika]

Suggestion box opens soon!

[Royal Blood]

I enjoy everything you post, Hazard.

Susan killed me too!

[Hazard]

I enjoy everything you post, Hazard.

Susan killed me too!

Thanks :3

[Naiinara]

If you want to make people take character death more seriously you have to reward those who don't die often rather than punish death itself, be that with experience loss or a long boring cut scene. Not that those things themselves in moderation aren't bad. A little experience loss to make it annoying, but not enough to make you feel like you lost hours of time.

Something like if your character hasn't died within the last so many hours or days or whatever it may be you get a 10xp bonus per tick. Maybe that's a bad idea. It's just an example that was easy at hand. But some reward that makes folks stop and think "is this story good enough it's worth the risk? Is this story good enough that my foe deserves the loss?

Sure maybe there will be ooc collusion where the big baddie just bruises someone up, kicks them a few times when they're down and spits on them and then leaves without killing them, but I think that's what should be more common anyway.

This is a really nice garden, and I don't see the sense in punishing everyone or taking away toys for what usually is the cause of a minority.

Oh and on a sidenote I'm fine with the whole can't remember fugue or your character death. I seem to recall it used to be that way anyway. The more things change the more they remain the same I guess. (And how we complained then until now we're back where we started)

[Spriggan Bride]

I get that there are a lot of players who don’t back down when they should- but I think that goes both ways. Lots of PVP I’ve been in there was no way to talk my way out of it which I almost always try to do.

Taking a life should sting a little too. Making a PVP kill a serious thing isn't just on the victim. The killer should think twice as well. I know we kill millions of goblins for 1xp each in our characters lifespan but the act of killing another player’s character ought to matter if death is going to matter.

I think after killing another character in PVP the winner should have a short penalty similar to respawning sickness. Not too long, but long enough to make them hesitate and slow them down. Maybe it’s recuperation from wounds, maybe reflection if they’re good or karma saying slow down if they’re evil. And the penalty could increase the more they do it in a week, and reset if they don't go on regular killing sprees.

[Morgy]

I think after killing another character in PVP the winner should have a short penalty similar to respawning sickness. Not too long, but long enough to make them hesitate and slow them down. Maybe it’s recuperation from wounds, maybe reflection if they’re good or karma saying slow down if they’re evil. And the penalty could increase the more they do it in a week, and reset if they don't go on regular killing sprees.

I really don’t think penalising a player for defeating an opponent should be a thing. That would be illogical, as naturally being dead should be costly, even if not always final in Arelith.. living should not have that physical price.

Also, what if it’s a group fight that is ongoing for some time. Why would striking the final blow make you more tired than, say, the barbarian ally who did 90% of the damage before you? What if you keep getting attacked by a group of players and manage to defeat them - should the would-be ‘victim’ PC now be penalised?

PvP is a part of Arelith that isn’t going away. Report people who appear to be pvp-baiting 24/7, but please don’t mechanically penalise anyone having triumph in legitimate physical conflict.

[MissEvelyn]

In one MUD I tried out, a player character would become bloodied after killing another PC, and there was a chance that NPCs would refuse to interact with you, because of the blood you had on you from killing that PC.

Something like that, a social penalty so to speak, could be interesting

Sure, you may win that PvP encounter, but now the risk that shops might not want to do business with you for a select period of time is there.

[Morgy]

In one MUD I tried out, a player character would become bloodied after killing another PC, and there was a chance that NPCs would refuse to interact with you, because of the blood you had on you from killing that PC.

Something like that, a social penalty so to speak, could be interesting

Sure, you may win that PvP encounter, but now the risk that shops might not want to do business with you for a select period of time is there.

What if your PC was defending themselves though? I also think NPCs being able to tell what kind of blood you have on you is a bit of a stretch too, as well as basically god-emoting that you cannot clean yourself.

If a PC is going around stabbing lots of people indiscriminately , they will become alienated over time by PCs naturally… be it through mechanical exiles or player hunts.

[Goldeen]

I think after killing another character in PVP the winner should have a short penalty similar to respawning sickness. Not too long, but long enough to make them hesitate and slow them down. Maybe it’s recuperation from wounds, maybe reflection if they’re good or karma saying slow down if they’re evil. And the penalty could increase the more they do it in a week, and reset if they don't go on regular killing sprees.

I really don’t think penalising a player for defeating an opponent should be a thing. That would be illogical, as naturally being dead should be costly, even if not always final in Arelith.. living should not have that physical price.

Adding on that a built in cooldown of the sort when killing SHOULD NOT be a thing for good or evil aligned PCs. Since the topic of "giving ground" was mentioned for the 48hr rule, there should be no priority whatsoever on who gives based on winner/loser ideology.

Just because you beat the other player in PvP gives you no right to have exclusivity on rules. Winning or losing does not apply here.

[Zavandar]

Will say that I agree that a built in cooldown of the sort when killing SHOULD NOT be a thing for good or evil aligned PCs.

what

[perseid]

I think after killing another character in PVP the winner should have a short penalty similar to respawning sickness. Not too long, but long enough to make them hesitate and slow them down. Maybe it’s recuperation from wounds, maybe reflection if they’re good or karma saying slow down if they’re evil. And the penalty could increase the more they do it in a week, and reset if they don't go on regular killing sprees.

I really don’t think penalising a player for defeating an opponent should be a thing. That would be illogical, as naturally being dead should be costly, even if not always final in Arelith.. living should not have that physical price.

Also, what if it’s a group fight that is ongoing for some time. Why would striking the final blow make you more tired than, say, the barbarian ally who did 90% of the damage before you? What if you keep getting attacked by a group of players and manage to defeat them - should the would-be ‘victim’ PC now be penalised?

PvP is a part of Arelith that isn’t going away. Report people who appear to be pvp-baiting 24/7, but please don’t mechanically penalise anyone having triumph in legitimate physical conflict.

I don't really understand the emphasis on logic here when the pvp balance is clearly one of game balance anyway. A penalty at all for death/losing doesn't make sense because coming back to life doesn't make any sense normally. Arelith already gives an incredible amount of narrative control to characters who are successful at pvp. The only reason most pvp-centric factions lose steam and clout is either they get clipped by the dms or their membership loses steam eventually and the new rules around memory only further reward being pro-actively violent thus encouraging players to be more violent than would make sense for someone irl. Why reward hyper aggression so thoroughly unless you think that's the only kind of rp that's immersive?

[Morgy]

I think after killing another character in PVP the winner should have a short penalty similar to respawning sickness. Not too long, but long enough to make them hesitate and slow them down. Maybe it’s recuperation from wounds, maybe reflection if they’re good or karma saying slow down if they’re evil. And the penalty could increase the more they do it in a week, and reset if they don't go on regular killing sprees.

I really don’t think penalising a player for defeating an opponent should be a thing. That would be illogical, as naturally being dead should be costly, even if not always final in Arelith.. living should not have that physical price.

Also, what if it’s a group fight that is ongoing for some time. Why would striking the final blow make you more tired than, say, the barbarian ally who did 90% of the damage before you? What if you keep getting attacked by a group of players and manage to defeat them - should the would-be ‘victim’ PC now be penalised?

PvP is a part of Arelith that isn’t going away. Report people who appear to be pvp-baiting 24/7, but please don’t mechanically penalise anyone having triumph in legitimate physical conflict.

I don't really understand the emphasis on logic here when the pvp balance is clearly one of game balance anyway. A penalty at all for death/losing doesn't make sense because coming back to life doesn't make any sense normally. Arelith already gives an incredible amount of narrative control to characters who are successful at pvp. The only reason most pvp-centric factions lose steam and clout is either they get clipped by the dms or their membership loses steam eventually and the new rules around memory only further reward being pro-actively violent thus encouraging players to be more violent than would make sense for someone irl. Why reward hyper aggression so thoroughly unless you think that's the only kind of rp that's immersive?

Logic does pay a part in elements of this game, just not all of it. A penalty for death makes sense because it's a mechanical pairing to the fact you -should- be RPing some weakness after death, at a minimum.

I really don't get where rewarding hyper-aggression comes into that. I'm talking about not penalising people for winning in PvP, when they could be the attackers OR defenders. The quote I responded to was about respawn sickness, not memory loss.

[perseid]

I really don’t think penalising a player for defeating an opponent should be a thing. That would be illogical, as naturally being dead should be costly, even if not always final in Arelith.. living should not have that physical price.

Also, what if it’s a group fight that is ongoing for some time. Why would striking the final blow make you more tired than, say, the barbarian ally who did 90% of the damage before you? What if you keep getting attacked by a group of players and manage to defeat them - should the would-be ‘victim’ PC now be penalised?

PvP is a part of Arelith that isn’t going away. Report people who appear to be pvp-baiting 24/7, but please don’t mechanically penalise anyone having triumph in legitimate physical conflict.

I don't really understand the emphasis on logic here when the pvp balance is clearly one of game balance anyway. A penalty at all for death/losing doesn't make sense because coming back to life doesn't make any sense normally. Arelith already gives an incredible amount of narrative control to characters who are successful at pvp. The only reason most pvp-centric factions lose steam and clout is either they get clipped by the dms or their membership loses steam eventually and the new rules around memory only further reward being pro-actively violent thus encouraging players to be more violent than would make sense for someone irl. Why reward hyper aggression so thoroughly unless you think that's the only kind of rp that's immersive?

Logic does pay a part in elements of this game, just not all of it. A penalty for death makes sense because it's a mechanical pairing to the fact you -should- be RPing some weakness after death, at a minimum.

I really don't get where rewarding hyper-aggression comes into that. I'm talking about not penalising people for winning in PvP, when they could be the attackers OR defenders. The quote I responded to was about respawn sickness, not memory loss.

I explained part of my reply poorly I think. My argument largely boils down to two things. The first being that logic or 'verisimilitude' don't (from my perspective) seem to be the driving reasons these sorts of mechanics get implemented. I do agree the execution can have an impact on them but I don't know that I see that impact as a reason by itself to implement them or not. In parallel, the incentives/rewards for engaging in pvp are bestowed purely on the winner. The only thing the loser gains is a break from being beat up and even then it's only by the characters who were specifically involved. From this perspective, I don't see a 'winner penalty' as actually a penalty if it's well considered because all it's doing is lessening the rewards for being the victor of which there are many including now being able to outright force a memory loss scenario onto the loser. Without some form of 'winner penalty' you're mechanically encouraging hyper aggression, including behaviors like one-lining or vapid interactions prior to combat, because you're placing all the rewards on only the winner's side.

[Zavandar]

Prior to this rule update, you'd have people who fought each other die and go to the fugue and one of them would go "I bet you're the type of person who doesn't even remember what happens in the fugue" as a sorry attempt at one-upping people. I'm glad this practice has been killed.

We don't need penalties for victors. It doesn't make any sense at all. Frankly I'm surprised it has even come up. If you don't want penalties "forced on you", let's start with whittling down the people that try to die better than others, as mentioned above.

People that respect death tend to die less.