Death Amnesia - Bad wording, and feedback it needs to be stronger.

[AstralUniverse]

For clarity on the following situation:

Say Bill and Joe meet up in the Nomad. They talk there for literal hours - maybe it's a business deal, maybe it's nefarious plotting. After hours of talking, Joe decides to betray Bill and "suddenly" (but not so suddenly to be a rulebreak) decides to stab Bill and kill him.

Does Bill remember anything of what was discussed in that hours-long meeting, or that the meeting was had?

I understand the need for clarity sometimes, but I'm baffled that this needs to be asked. It is loud and clear that the whole point here in this entire rule is to prevent Joe from knowing or even suspecting Bill for stabbing him, or knowing he was stabbed and dead at all. I dont think it matters what you do or dont remember in the exact details of the hours long business conversation as long as you cannot incriminate Joe in any shape way or form. Lets leave some freedom and room for creativity please. I dont think anyone would mind if you remember some stuff from the conversation that isnt going to lead you to suspect Joe for your own death, that's not what the rule is about.

[Amateur Hour]

For clarity on the following situation:

Say Bill and Joe meet up in the Nomad. They talk there for literal hours - maybe it's a business deal, maybe it's nefarious plotting. After hours of talking, Joe decides to betray Bill and "suddenly" (but not so suddenly to be a rulebreak) decides to stab Bill and kill him.

Does Bill remember anything of what was discussed in that hours-long meeting, or that the meeting was had?

I understand the need for clarity sometimes, but I'm baffled that this needs to be asked. It is loud and clear that the whole point here in this entire rule is to prevent Joe from knowing or even suspecting Bill for stabbing him, or knowing he was stabbed and dead at all. I dont think it matters what you do or dont remember in the exact details of the hours long business conversation as long as you cannot incriminate Joe in any shape way or form. Lets leave some freedom and room for creativity please. I dont think anyone would mind if you remember some stuff from the conversation that isnt going to lead you to suspect Joe for your own death, that's not what the rule is about.

The reason I asked for clarity here is that this regards the part of the rule that is actually changing. Previously, death amnesia rules, as explicitly stated by Spyre at the time, permitted you to remember some interaction with your murderer if there was a long period of time interacting with your murderer prior to your death; you were just required to forget that anything remotely hostile happened (which left it open for the possibility that weird things happened shortly after parting ways - e.g. after the conversation at the Nomad you got stabbed on the way home, you had way too much to drink and blacked out, etc).

[DM Vivec]

For clarity on the following situation:

Say Bill and Joe meet up in the Nomad. They talk there for literal hours - maybe it's a business deal, maybe it's nefarious plotting. After hours of talking, Joe decides to betray Bill and "suddenly" (but not so suddenly to be a rulebreak) decides to stab Bill and kill him.

Does Bill remember anything of what was discussed in that hours-long meeting, or that the meeting was had?

I understand the need for clarity sometimes, but I'm baffled that this needs to be asked. It is loud and clear that the whole point here in this entire rule is to prevent Joe from knowing or even suspecting Bill for stabbing him, or knowing he was stabbed and dead at all. I dont think it matters what you do or dont remember in the exact details of the hours long business conversation as long as you cannot incriminate Joe in any shape way or form. Lets leave some freedom and room for creativity please. I dont think anyone would mind if you remember some stuff from the conversation that isnt going to lead you to suspect Joe for your own death, that's not what the rule is about.

Nuance of what should and shouldn't be remembered makes this impossible to police or for anyone to agree on and understand. The examples I've provided here are intentionally specific to complete rule out the victim from remembering anything about what happened - so you specifically shouldn't remember anything about the conversation in the example provided. This was brought up previously, so I'm just copy pasting these examples again. They explain why even being able to remember the conversation factually took place is already leading the victim towards being able to implicate his murderer.

As I said above as well, remembering less is better than remembering more.

• We were having a discussion on something important.

• Timothy was absolutely there, meaning the character can not deny his involvement or influence the narrative to his favor.

• Bob's player may be pushing information that he shouldn't necessarily have access to such as suddenly deciding that not only was Timothy there, but the conditions he originally intended on giving Timothy for their business arrangement were very inappropriate and that the implication is that Timothy would be angry.

It may not be that way in every situation but none of us want to contextually rule every single possible scenario. There is no nuance here and the language being used here is intentionally specific where the line has been arbitrarily drawn.

[Choofed]

• Characters do not remember the fugue or know that they entered it. Conversations in the fugue can not be remembered.

• You are allowed to know information leading up to your death. For example, Bob remembers that Johnathen wanted to go on a walk through the Minmir Forest. But he can't remember anything else.

• You are allowed to remember the specific reason you were traveling to a location. For example: Bob remember than Johnathen wanted to go on a walk through the Minmir Forest. They were were wanting to collect some softwood. But he can't remember anything else.

• Bob and Johnathen are attacked by Timothy and Carl, killing them in the Minmir Forest. Bob and Johnathen do not remember being attacked or killed by Timothy and Carl.

• Bob and Johnathen do not remember the people in the area at the time of their death. For example, there may have been a witness or travelers who were nearby when Timothy and Carl struck the vicious blow. They do not remember either their attackers, the witness or the travelers.

• The witness saw what happened. Both the witness and the murderers are allowed to do what they want with this information. This includes informing Bob and Johnathen of what happened.

• Because neither Bob or Johnathen know what happened, they are not allowed to seek revenge on their death and neither are they allowed to tell anyone about it, as they do not remember that it happened. This means they should not write a letter and leave it on the message board or request others go to where they attacked and look for clues, neither should they mention the witness or the travelers who they saw.

• This includes resurrection and respawn, the memory loss rule applies.

• When in doubt, remember less. If you are uncertain about if you should or shouldn't, the rule of thumb is don't. You will never be in the wrong by remembering less.

--

the above has been drafted as a proposal for both the rules page / death page, i'm leaving it here for community opinion on whether or not it makes sense and can be read / interpreted easily

these ruling update will also accompany an update to another part of the rules section which was acidentally left out which is that resurrection should not happen in pvp

Hey there, this is awesome and thank you for responding and taking this up. I've a few feedback points on this draft, I'll go over bit by bit and then propose a potential wording for inspiration.

I’m going to be nitpicky on words here. I’m not doing this to be mean or clinical to any observer, I’m more so doing it because we want to clearly relay intent when people read these for the first time.

• Characters do not remember the fugue or know that they entered it. Conversations in the fugue can not be remembered.

I saw a while back a suggestion that on the fugue signs get posted up reminding people of these rules. If that could actually become a thing that would be awesome.

• You are allowed to know information leading up to your death. For example, Bob remembers that Johnathen wanted to go on a walk through the Minmir Forest. But he can't remember anything else.

I think with the orientation we’re now taking, just giving a blanket statement of “You are allowed to know information leading up to your death” may be misleading to first time readers who skim these.

I tried to do this in my example, so there was less implication “You remembered more than you should.”

• You are allowed to remember the specific reason you were travelling to a location. For example: Bob remember than Johnathen wanted to go on a walk through the Minmir Forest. They were were wanting to collect some softwood. But he can't remember anything else.

• Bob and Johnathen are attacked by Timothy and Carl, killing them in the Minmir Forest. Bob and Johnathen do not remember being attacked or killed by Timothy and Carl.

• Bob and Johnathen do not remember the people in the area at the time of their death. For example, there may have been a witness or travelers who were nearby when Timothy and Carl struck the vicious blow. They do not remember either their attackers, the witness or the travelers.

I don’t think only via examples will be good enough, and strong statements should be added here instead backed by examples further down. What has been implied here is the following:

• You are allowed to remember the specific reason you were travelling to a location.

Do you remember who you travelled with? I imagine not given the clarification that you don’t remember any travellers. But that felt a bit specific to the example given.

• Bob and Johnathen do not remember the people in the area at the time of their death.

An important distinction here but needs to be done, since you have clarified area means map, does that mean if you transition a tile you evade the memory rule?

This may be pedantic, but I can imagine going forward and poisoning the pool with the assumption that since they moved the area of the scene they moved their obligations in memory. In any example and statement it should be clearly stated where this line is drawn.

• Because neither Bob or Johnathen know what happened, they are not allowed to seek revenge on their death and neither are they allowed to tell anyone about it, as they do not remember that it happened. This means they should not write a letter and leave it on the message board or request others go to where they attacked and look for clues, neither should they mention the witness or the travelers who they saw.

Right, this is good stuff but I have personally encountered people on the spot writing a letter to themself with an instantly inserted map pin when they get in a sticky encounter writing evidence to themself to bypass the memory rule.

Will this be kept as a feature? Or will we codify not writing letters to yourself to evidence to yourself as I listed in my feature set?

---

Using the distinct threads you’ve put down I’m going to offer a proposal again to perhaps work from. I’m taking a few key assumptions:

• I am assuming you remember invitations to locations.
• I am assuming you remember invitations, like being invited to someone's house and then travelling there with them while within a degree of reason. I address some keyholed examples in Situation 2, but I think situation 2 could be stronger.
• I am assuming just because you transitioned a couple areas running for your life you don’t suddenly skip this “Area” as defined my map stuff.
• I am assuming that attempts to evade the memory death rule are out the window. You’ve said people can’t write a letter and leave it on the message board, but it’s important to distinguish the timing for both before and after in my opinion.

When a character dies, they lose memories relating and leading up to their death as well as their time in their fugue plane. The effects on your memory from death are as follows:

• Characters do not remember anything related to the fugue or entering it. You know nothing of your encounters in the fugue even after respawning.
• Characters do not remember any participants in the roleplay and in the surrounding area leading up to their death. This includes witnesses, attackers or allies.
• Characters do not remember conversations, names, or any information that they obtained in the roleplay that lead up to their death.
• Characters are allowed to remember the reason why they travelled to a location where the roleplay started that led to their death. They remember who they originally travelled with to that location.
• These rules apply immediately when you enter the fugue plane. No matter the means you are bought out of the fugue plane, these rules immediately apply and your character loses memory.

For consideration of this rule, the surrounding area is defined as locations around and in the general vicinity of where you died. You may not transition 1 area across and suddenly remember the events of the previous map, as it would still be a component of the roleplay leading up to your death. Do not try and game the system to produce positive memory outcomes.

Players are not permitted to write notes immediately before a hostile encounter to use as tools to bypass the memory restrictions of this rule. This does not include sending in game messenger services to alert allies.

If alarming people immediately after your death to your last remembered location would cause people to rush to that location, especially when participants may still be there, you are not allowed to do so.

Examples:

Situation 1: Player A enters into a location to go mining and encounters Player B. The two have a dispute about who may mine, and this leads to conflict where Player A dies. The only thing player A can remember is that they went to the location to mine ore and that they have woken up after likely dying.

Situation 2: Player C invites Player D to their house from the town square, but assassinates them by poisoning the food. Player D remembers being invited to player C’s house, and travelling there as it was their original reason they travelled to that location. They do not however remember any of the conversations they had with player C while there, or that player C killed them.

Situation 3: Player D has just died in a PVP encounter in ‘The big cave’, after encountering their sworn enemies. They are not allowed to run to his friends and say “I just died in the big cave, quickly, send everyone!” because you are not allowed to alarm people to your last remembered location.

Situation 4: Player F and Player G want to go on a walk to Minmir Forest to collect softwood. They however encounter bandits 1, 2 & 3 and are killed, entering the fugue plane. Because Player F and Player G do not remember any participants in the roleplay in the area leading up to their death, they do not remember that the bandits killed them, or any interactions they had with the bandits in that scenario.

Player F & G are not allowed to tell anyone about it when they respawn because they do not remember it happened. They cannot request anyone go to the location where they died, they cannot reach out to witnesses to tell them what happened because they don’t remember them as witnesses, and they may not write about their death on the board.

The bandits still remember they killed Player F and G. Any witnesses who did not die also remember what happened, and could even tell Player F and G because they did not enter the fugue plane.

Situation 5: Two characters get into a large battle, and one of them dies but the other survives and revives his friend. Because the player died, even though he was revived by his friend at an altar, he does not remember the details of the battle and only remembers the reason he travelled to the location where the battle started.

When in doubt, remember less. If you are uncertain about if you should or shouldn't, the rule of thumb is don't. You will never be in the wrong by remembering less. If you have any questions, or are unsure of what you should or should not remember from an encounter, please contact a DM first before bringing that information into the roleplay environment.

[DM Vivec]

I'm leaving this draft here for a few more days for people to consider before updating the wikipedia:

When a character dies, they lose memories relating and leading up to their death as well as their time in their fugue plane. The effects on your memory from death are as follows:

• Characters do not remember anything related to the fugue or entering it. You know nothing of your encounters in the fugue even after respawning.

• Characters do not remember any participants in the roleplay and in the surrounding area leading up to their death. This includes witnesses, attackers and traveling bystanders.

• Characters do not remember conversations, names, or any information that they obtained in the roleplay that lead up to their death.

• Characters are allowed to remember three things. Where they were going, why they were going there and who they were traveling with.

• The three things characters are allowed to remember should not implicate anyone in the murder or definitively answer the mystery of their death. When in doubt, remember less.

• These rules apply immediately when you enter the fugue plane. No matter the means you are bought out of the fugue plane, these rules immediately apply and your character loses memory.

The spirit of the rule is that the victim should be almost completely removed from the narrative of their own death. They are not investigators, detectives or reliable sources of information into the mystery of their own murder.

You should forget entirely any important information you learned in the roleplay or the roleplay leading up to where you died as well, such as that someone was a necromancer, vampire or assassin. You can not die to learn information for the purpose of exposing someone.

If you can not answer a question without doing one of those things, simply determine that your character can not remember it and avoid providing the answer.

Characters can not behave in such a way that they have the ability to avoid memory loss. Even if your chararcter might have access to information, as a player, you should know to refrain from using it in a way which circumvents memory loss or turns you into an investigator, detective or reliable source of information.

[Choofed]

I'm leaving this draft here for a few more days for people to consider before updating the wikipedia:

Looks good to me.

[riffraff]

Does this mean if you were having a long roleplay session in a static location (say a tavern or a settlement) for several hours, then were interrupted by a hostile encounter (say an underdarker/surfacer raid, crazy cultists or your arch-nemesis), you wouldn't remember any of the conversations/events going on long before the hostile person or party showed up?

The wording implies this to me because you have "leading up to their death" vs "Characters are allowed to remember three things. Where they were going, why they were going there and who they were traveling with" with the emphasis on travel.

I understand the need to set boundaries like area and that you can't put arbitrary time on things, but if that's the intention it seems rather punishing for any player who spends a lot of time roleplaying in one settlement/area.

[Rei_Jin]

That's exactly what it means.

Because otherwise people exploit that bit of grace and we end up with Johnny playing lead investigator in his own murder.

[Azensor]

Meh i just ignore the entire thing now tbh.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Questions about the new death ruling:

Will my character be aware that they died and returned to life?

Will my character remember anything about that day at all? Will they remember the rough location where they were killed? Mostly interested in cases where someone is attacked and killed in the city if they can go to the watch and say "I think I was attacked in the city but I don't remember anything" and leave it from there. How is the team going to handle people who come into settlements to PK people?

Is the DM team going to start enforcing NPC ignoring so victims have at least one defense against being ganked anywhere in the city? So if it's a planned hit, killers should pay attention to if there are any NPCs in the area. ESPECIALLY guard npcs. They wander all over Guldorand but are basically just clutter since NPC ignoring isn't enforced.

If people don't remember that they died is there any point to the assassins guild anymore other than removing people from settlement leadership? In the past I used the assassin's guild to make a point of something, but now not only do I have no idea if assassins actually killed someone, the victim can't remember anything either. Which is better for the assassin player, but, now the guild feels especially useless. I made a few suggestions about how assassin hits could have more severity, I hope it will be considered in light of these rule changes: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=43077

As a side note, this is going to put a whole lot more onus on the killer to clear out of somewhere after they kill someone as well, because now the victim cannot remember anything. I still see a lot of people parroting the idea that the victim should be the one taking special care to not be in the place where they died, even though it was changed a while back so that both sides should be taking care to not antagonize one another.

Looking forward to people arguing that they shouldn't be punished for disrespecting death, because their character doesn't remember that they were killed by someone, so how would they know that being a jerk would lead to death.

[good man of god]

This new ruling is very odd and confusing, to me, it seems to be poorly worded, self-contradicting, and irritating.

We cannot remember anything from the RP leading up to the death?

• How long is 'leading up to'?
• Any bit of logic is going to tell you that a character would remember something intense such as an altercation, argument, or fight
• Why should my character suddenly forget where they were, what they did, and who they were with? Just because my character died doesn't make him a moron
• What does this mean for diviners?

Characters do not remember anything related to the fugue or entering it. You know nothing of your encounters in the fugue even after respawning.

- This one makes perfect sense, and was kinda already the case.

Characters do not remember any participants in the roleplay and in the surrounding area leading up to their death. This includes witnesses, attackers and traveling bystanders.

- This one is poorly worded and frustrating, why can't my character remember the RP?

Characters do not remember conversations, names, or any information that they obtained in the roleplay that lead up to their death.

- ??? what madness is this? If my character is kept in a cell and interrogated, tortured, and then killed, he will remember who was there and what happened, for example, I mean... c'mon guys.

Characters are allowed to remember three things. Where they were going, why they were going there and who they were traveling with.

- this is a direct contradiction of the rule itself.

Can we please get this rule reviewed and rewritten so that it actually makes sense? I'm a native English speaker and even I am struggling to make heads or tails of it, I weep for our non-native speaking players.

I feel like I'm in bizzaro-world.

[The GrumpyCat]

I can't touch on all these points, but I will touch on a couple

Is the DM team going to start enforcing NPC ignoring so victims have at least one defense against being ganked anywhere in the city? So if it's a planned hit, killers should pay attention to if there are any NPCs in the area. ESPECIALLY guard npcs. They wander all over Guldorand but are basically just clutter since NPC ignoring isn't enforced.

No, we're not. There's a lot of reasons why - but for me one of the biggest is that we simply couldn't enforce the above, unless we were on and monitoring 24/7.
We get a message that say, Bob has killed Harry in Guldorand. But that doesn't really cover /where/ in guldorand, nor the situation. Bob could be invisable, covered up, unknown to the guards- Bob could never have visited Guldorand before today's hit. Bob could also be no where near any NPCs at the time - and we don't know that.
There's other reasons, philosophically, why heavy DM enforcement of Guard NPCs isn't very likely to happen on a general basis, but that's the major one.

As a side note, this is going to put a whole lot more onus on the killer to clear out of somewhere after they kill someone as well, because now the victim cannot remember anything. I still see a lot of people parroting the idea that the victim should be the one taking special care to not be in the place where they died, even though it was changed a while back so that both sides should be taking care to not antagonize one another.

This relies on (and I know this is a shocking and terrifying concept) Common Sense being utalized.

I don't think we have an issue with people knowing that they /died/. Or at least that they were very ,very, very gravely wounded.

The rule isn't so much that you need to avoid the AREA your killer is in - it's you need to avoid your KILLER.
If you have reason, OOCly, to believe your killer is in a specific area you really should, if at all possible, avoid that area for a while. Coming up reason should be very easy, given you just died. It can be anything from 'Oooh I don't feel so good, I think I should take it easy in the bar for a bit...' to 'I have an ominous feeling about Guldorand right now. I do not think I should go there.'
If you do for some reason run across your killer, AVOID them, do not talk about your death, try and get out of the area they are in asap. If your killer is in an area you need to use (e.g. the hub in andunor) do your business and leave. If you died DUE to being in an area then yeah, respect that narrative and avoid that area for a bit if at all possible.
Likewise those that did the killing - you've right of way but use compassion and common sense. If you slay a native underdarker in the hub, don't try and block them from later using the hub by hanging around there. If they enter, leave them alone, let them do their thing, try and ignore them so long as they're quick and do their business..
And if you happen to run across each other purely by accident - just get out of each others way asap.
Just use common sense. Honestly this has worked pretty well in the past. If you died, do your best to avoid your killer, or places they'd be- and if you have to absolutly visit those places - do so quickly, consisely, avoiding you killer. Try to respect the roleplay of your own characters death.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I really don't like that the solution to these questions is that I now need to metagame.

Also if NPC ignoring isn't going to be enforced, does this mean players are free to kill whoever they want in the Shadovar tradepost and Dis?

[Curve]

I really don't like that the solution to these questions is that I now need to metagame.

There is bad and good metagaming. This is an example of metagaming in order to maintain some semblance of order on the server. It is a reasonable request.

Also if NPC ignoring isn't going to be enforced, does this mean players are free to kill whoever they want in the Shadovar tradepost and Dis?

The applicable rule stands and if someone is flagrant in their breaking of it then they can be delt with by the DMs. Report bad behavior and rule breaks.

Both of these situations are asking players to just be cool and use common sense. Do that.

[Cataclysm of Iron]

I feel like people are being deliberately contrarian about this (on the internet of all places!).

Common sense is apparent here. When you die, you lose a big chunk of time in a way that gives your death a meaningful resonance and doesn't let you weaponise it against your killer or just quietly pretend it didn't happen. Seems to me that everything else is dressing. The "how does that make sense?" argument has two responses: 1) to make the game fun - how does coming back from the dead to begin with make sense? and 2) trauma responses can cause people to lose huge chunks of time when seriously injured irl, expand that to the trauma of actually dying.

A DM will correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying it's still metagaming (and against the "Roleplay" rule) to kill someone brazenly in full view of NPC guards. The clarity was just "for practical reasons don't expect a DM to possess an NPC guard and take action every time it happens".

[ReverentBlade]

So if you are accidentally fugue'd in the arena during training because of mistaken subdual settings, are you supposed to stop everything and be an amnesiatic drama queen?

[Watchful Glare]

Like all things, I would imagine handwaving it is a thing if both parties agree.

[Azensor]

imo just ignore deaths, no point in even trying to make anything out of it at this point.

[Power Word, Haste]

imo just ignore deaths, no point in even trying to make anything out of it at this point.

?

[The GrumpyCat]

I really don't like that the solution to these questions is that I now need to metagame.

Also if NPC ignoring isn't going to be enforced, does this mean players are free to kill whoever they want in the Shadovar tradepost and Dis?

We do minor amounts of metagaming all the time, in order to stay within the rules. This shouldn't be a problem.

And the two areas you've named are LITERALLY the only ares where we somewhat enforce the no pvp rule, and in the Shadovar Tradepost there are actually mechanics for the NPCs to use.

Finally the two points we're discussing here (No NPC interference and players avoiding each other after death) has LITERALLY been in place for as long as I've been playing, and for the most part people have managed. This isn't a 'Now I need to metagame' It's 'for pretty much entirity of the servers existance, nie on two decades, some amount of metagame/understanding has been required and npcs don't tend to get involved in pvp.' The recent rules have done zero to change that.

[Old Lies Die Harder]

I have to say, I really do not understand why "just use common sense" is such a common refrain in responding to questions. I see this from both staff and community as pretty much a response macro to almost every question.

If people were, on the whole, inclined to use common sense, we would not be here needing specific and very granular bulleted list of things that are or are not permitted, including exceptions. On this basis, it is my personal dream to one day see people stop using 'it's common sense' as a response.

That being said, I'm conflicted about this particular change.

On the one hand, I have seen countless situations where a carefully crafted character arc has been torn asunder overnight with no real roleplay to speak of because someone goes, "And just before they killed me, I learned they were a sharran/warlock/banite/devil/rakshasa". I like having the option now (by virtue of effectively expanding the 'forget window') of being able to protect (or try to protect) that by actually killing the character.

Unfortunately, this adds greater weight not only to death, but to pvp and mechanical capability. I just got finished reading a recent rules update where the focus on mechanics over written narrative roleplay was lamented and cited as a reason for the change. Two, three days later, I now have the ability to delete your narrative and writing by mechanically sending you to the fugue plane. You now have no recourse in this situation besides 'avoid this area for a few days' and 'don't interact with this character' for a few days. Bad actors can now isolate characters, use mechanical power to kill them, and be further insulated from recourse than they already were. The only real defense to this is OOC avoidance, or focusing on mechanics/system mastery and being quick on the draw to avoid losing. Forget 'how does this nerf clerics'. How does does this help fight the cheesy win mentality we struggle with? I foresee this just reinforcing a focus on mechanics and power over text and narrative. That's a shame.

I have another concern as well. With as many statements as I'm seeing lately referencing the logistics of dealing with misbehavior (the logistics/time of enforcing the 'don't ignore npc' rule mentioned in this thread, the logistics/time of handling firstlevel requests from another recent policy change, etc.), I'm kind of wondering about the benefit of this change to the staff end of things. Do we not forsee this change creating more administrative work for DMs?

Consider the following:

Say I'm Shasta Rakshasa. Someone sees past my purrfect disguise. I kill them. They are now prohibited by policy from remembering that I backhanded (see what I did there?) them, the secret they discovered, etc. Let's say they, by malice or mistake, mention something of this in character. Someone in the know reports them for it. Are we not now in a situation where the DM team has to go do a bunch of crunchy log diving and investigation and, effectively, retrospective roleplay audit that is a logistical nightmare? This example is a simple situation and it's already getting time consuming to deal with. Imagine how much worse it gets across multiple parties and timezones, tracking the propagation of information that was put out there in a matter that was a rulebreak.

[DM Vivec]

This new ruling is very odd and confusing, to me, it seems to be poorly worded, self-contradicting, and irritating.

We cannot remember anything from the RP leading up to the death?

• How long is 'leading up to'?
• Any bit of logic is going to tell you that a character would remember something intense such as an altercation, argument, or fight
• Why should my character suddenly forget where they were, what they did, and who they were with? Just because my character died doesn't make him a moron
• What does this mean for diviners?

Characters do not remember anything related to the fugue or entering it. You know nothing of your encounters in the fugue even after respawning.

- This one makes perfect sense, and was kinda already the case.

Characters do not remember any participants in the roleplay and in the surrounding area leading up to their death. This includes witnesses, attackers and traveling bystanders.

- This one is poorly worded and frustrating, why can't my character remember the RP?

Characters do not remember conversations, names, or any information that they obtained in the roleplay that lead up to their death.

- ??? what madness is this? If my character is kept in a cell and interrogated, tortured, and then killed, he will remember who was there and what happened, for example, I mean... c'mon guys.

Characters are allowed to remember three things. Where they were going, why they were going there and who they were traveling with.

- this is a direct contradiction of the rule itself.

Can we please get this rule reviewed and rewritten so that it actually makes sense? I'm a native English speaker and even I am struggling to make heads or tails of it, I weep for our non-native speaking players.

I feel like I'm in bizzaro-world.

How long is 'leading up to'?
Any bit of logic is going to tell you that a character would remember something intense such as an altercation, argument, or fight
Why should my character suddenly forget where they were, what they did, and who they were with? Just because my character died doesn't make him a moron
What does this mean for diviners?

1. When in doubt, remember less. Leading up to is intentionally vague because roleplay scenes can encompass many areas and a long period of time. Instead, we're asking players to use good faith to determine what that might mean and adhere to the intention of the rule which is that they forget things.

2. Narrative balance and flow is more important than logic. It's a fantasy world where the dead come back to life, dragons, spells that alter time and vampires. In our particular iteration of our fantastical world, characters now forget things when they die.

3. Explained above!

4. I don't know what this one means.

"This one is poorly worded and frustrating, why can't my character remember the RP?"

You answer your own question about the confusion, your character can't remember it because they died.

"- ??? what madness is this? If my character is kept in a cell and interrogated, tortured, and then killed, he will remember who was there and what happened, for example, I mean... c'mon guys."

He died, he won't. This would involve roleplay leading up to the death.

"- this is a direct contradiction of the rule itself."

I don't personally think so. The rules are summarized and are all consistent with those two final statements. I'm happy to read more specifically what you mean, though!

[DM Vivec]

So if you are accidentally fugue'd in the arena during training because of mistaken subdual settings, are you supposed to stop everything and be an amnesiatic drama queen?

Nope! Unless you want to. Even in the old rules, you could say: "What, is my character supposed to suddenly leave the training grounds because of the 48h PvP rule because he was killed after someone forgot to turn on subdual?" There's really nothing much changed with this specific hypothetical.

[DM Vivec]

Questions about the new death ruling:

Will my character be aware that they died and returned to life?

Yep! You were going somewhere, you know why you were going there, then suddenly you wake up in a temple and don't know what happened. What your character doesn't know is if they were murdered by someone else or not and who.

I can imagine this leading to some funny hypotheticals such as ten people intending to attack Cordor suddenly wake up and none of them remembering what happened after waking up in the temple. It would probably be pretty obvious, either way, we're just asking players to do their best to adhere to the principle of staying removed from the narratives of their own death, i.e, specifically, the investigation and determining who the culprit is.

Ultimately we're just going to have to see how this plays out on the server for a while and make adjustments where they're necessary, it's a pretty difficult concept to put down on paper with all the specific possible scenarios, so instead we're conveying the spirit of what we want with broad strokes.

People are, of course, welcome to reach out if they're curious to get a ruling from a Dungeon Master for a specific situation.

When in doubt, remember less!

[DM Vivec]

I have to say, I really do not understand why "just use common sense" is such a common refrain in responding to questions. I see this from both staff and community as pretty much a response macro to almost every question.

If people were, on the whole, inclined to use common sense, we would not be here needing specific and very granular bulleted list of things that are or are not permitted, including exceptions. On this basis, it is my personal dream to one day see people stop using 'it's common sense' as a response.

That being said, I'm conflicted about this particular change.

On the one hand, I have seen countless situations where a carefully crafted character arc has been torn asunder overnight with no real roleplay to speak of because someone goes, "And just before they killed me, I learned they were a sharran/warlock/banite/devil/rakshasa". I like having the option now (by virtue of effectively expanding the 'forget window') of being able to protect (or try to protect) that by actually killing the character.

Unfortunately, this adds greater weight not only to death, but to pvp and mechanical capability. I just got finished reading a recent rules update where the focus on mechanics over written narrative roleplay was lamented and cited as a reason for the change. Two, three days later, I now have the ability to delete your narrative and writing by mechanically sending you to the fugue plane. You now have no recourse in this situation besides 'avoid this area for a few days' and 'don't interact with this character' for a few days. Bad actors can now isolate characters, use mechanical power to kill them, and be further insulated from recourse than they already were. The only real defense to this is OOC avoidance, or focusing on mechanics/system mastery and being quick on the draw to avoid losing. Forget 'how does this nerf clerics'. How does does this help fight the cheesy win mentality we struggle with? I foresee this just reinforcing a focus on mechanics and power over text and narrative. That's a shame.

I have another concern as well. With as many statements as I'm seeing lately referencing the logistics of dealing with misbehavior (the logistics/time of enforcing the 'don't ignore npc' rule mentioned in this thread, the logistics/time of handling firstlevel requests from another recent policy change, etc.), I'm kind of wondering about the benefit of this change to the staff end of things. Do we not forsee this change creating more administrative work for DMs?

Consider the following:

Say I'm Shasta Rakshasa. Someone sees past my purrfect disguise. I kill them. They are now prohibited by policy from remembering that I backhanded (see what I did there?) them, the secret they discovered, etc. Let's say they, by malice or mistake, mention something of this in character. Someone in the know reports them for it. Are we not now in a situation where the DM team has to go do a bunch of crunchy log diving and investigation and, effectively, retrospective roleplay audit that is a logistical nightmare? This example is a simple situation and it's already getting time consuming to deal with. Imagine how much worse it gets across multiple parties and timezones, tracking the propagation of information that was put out there in a matter that was a rulebreak.

Unfortunately, this adds greater weight not only to death, but to pvp and mechanical capability. I just got finished reading a recent rules update where the focus on mechanics over written narrative roleplay was lamented and cited as a reason for the change. Two, three days later, I now have the ability to delete your narrative and writing by mechanically sending you to the fugue plane. You now have no recourse in this situation besides 'avoid this area for a few days' and 'don't interact with this character' for a few days. Bad actors can now isolate characters, use mechanical power to kill them, and be further insulated from recourse than they already were. The only real defense to this is OOC avoidance, or focusing on mechanics/system mastery and being quick on the draw to avoid losing. Forget 'how does this nerf clerics'. How does does this help fight the cheesy win mentality we struggle with? I foresee this just reinforcing a focus on mechanics and power over text and narrative. That's a shame.

Greater weight to death is specifically what it was intended for. It's also crafted in mind that assassins that kill someone, sneakily, and be able to not have their identities compromised, etcetera. I can certainly imagine some situations and how it would favor players initiating pvp more frequently, but we're also hoping that it encourages people to pvp less in some situations.

For example, if you just discovered that Bob is a necromancer, is it worth fighting him or is it worth going back to tell people? Is it worth rising up to the taunt and being murdered or should you back down because you need to remember what you've learned?

Either way, time will tell - rules are inherently here to support the community, make things fun and to try and encourage more nuanced interactions. If it doesn't work, we'll change what we need to over time or, certainly so if it's particularly terrible, removing it is always an option in the future. I'd personally like to try putting faith that most will do their best to work with this system instead of undermining or cheesing it. If it works, great. If it doesn't, oh well.

Say I'm Shasta Rakshasa. Someone sees past my purrfect disguise. I kill them. They are now prohibited by policy from remembering that I backhanded (see what I did there?) them, the secret they discovered, etc. Let's say they, by malice or mistake, mention something of this in character. Someone in the know reports them for it. Are we not now in a situation where the DM team has to go do a bunch of crunchy log diving and investigation and, effectively, retrospective roleplay audit that is a logistical nightmare? This example is a simple situation and it's already getting time consuming to deal with. Imagine how much worse it gets across multiple parties and timezones, tracking the propagation of information that was put out there in a matter that was a rulebreak.

Yep. What you're describing from our manual labor isn't that difficult and pretty in line with what we already do. I think in this post you mention some other things being removed because of how time consuming it was, was often because players didn't know how to calculate their attributes and something that should have been us logging in for five minutes to change their feat or adjust their character turned into a thirty minute or hour long affair.

Obviously there's no way of knowing right now how much labor it will be or won't be, but it seems in line with something we can manage right now (especially with reduced burdens from other elements).

Just as an edit: we were also sitting at a backlog of around 90-120 (+unansnwered PMs) for feat/restat requests, that's about 3x/4x more than what we usually get for any other kind of report or request.