Discussion: Remembering the Fugue

[gilescorey]

It doesn't make much sense.
"Darn, I died. But I'm okay, now." Remembering the fugue, remembering /actually dying/ would be ridiculous. Saying "Yeah I was just unconscious" or "I was badly wounded but managed to escape" at the least is a good hand-wave. How do you even get revived? The system says "The grace of [Deity] has revived you, but you are weakened, etc". Surely the gods don't care that much, do they?

[furryn]

I don't mind being able to remember it. I think it opens up more potential for RP than before.
The only thing I have concerns with is the idea of people going "I'll go raise the corpse!"
But does that actually happen in-game? I feel like most people wouldn't be that casual about it. But I could be wrong.

Also I really agree with the idea of making killing serious on both ends.

As for a "realism" perspective for not remembering.... we're in a game. Spirits and souls are real, and have semi-tangible stuffs associated with them. Memory could easily be one. We can't really use real-life anatomy and physiology for the brain in justifying what characters can do with their brains all the time. I mean, magic works because they store spells in their mind and then it just goes away, at the base means of spell-casting. How the hell does that work?

I really agree with Corey on this one.


Also, i see a lot of people saying things like: "I see less RP in fugue after the rule change" or "RP is less for it" and so on. My opinion on that?

Well I've never, ever, seen RP in the fugue plane before this rule. People basically went: "My character won't remember this, so basically I might as well go OOC"

[Baron Saturday]

I don't mind being able to remember it. I think it opens up more potential for RP than before.
The only thing I have concerns with is the idea of people going "I'll go raise the corpse!"
But does that actually happen in-game? I feel like most people wouldn't be that casual about it. But I could be wrong.

Also, i see a lot of people saying things like: "I see less RP in fugue after the rule change" or "RP is less for it" and so on. My opinion on that?

Well I've never, ever, seen RP in the fugue plane before this rule. People basically went: "My character won't remember this, so basically I might as well go OOC."

First, the "I'll go raise the corpse"-thing: I've seen it happen, it's kinda gross, but I don't see it NEARLY as often now as I did before the XP loss was decreased. Also, the people who do it will do it regardless of if the Fugue is supposed to be remembered or not. And, honestly, I don't care if they do. I don't have to participate in it, and it doesn't really affect me if some other players choose to sit around in death in order to circumvent a portion of the death penalty.

Second, I agree with furryn's points.

Third, having played on servers where the rule was that the death area and events immediately preceding death were supposed to be forgotten, I can say that it doesn't improve matters. What it DOES do is create uncertainty and suspicion - I would see threads asking, "How much can I remember?" with depressing regularity, and inevitably they devolved into people attacking each other for metagaming knowledge supposedly lost in death.

THAT SAID: What do people think of adding dangers to the Fugue? What would said dangers be, and what could the penalties be for falling prey to them?

[Irongron]

THAT SAID: What do people think of adding dangers to the Fugue? What would said dangers be, and what could the penalties be for falling prey to them?

My original thought in regards to expanding the fugue was to eventually include some of the city. A place of lore, exploration and weird deity stuff. I can't quite remember all the ideas, but it did go something like this...

XP penalty raised again.

Defeating creatures in some kind of very dynamic dungeon, and just bad encounters along the way (as well as passing various tests) would allow one to lessen the death penalty, until there wasn't one at all.

Losing contents/trials would only ever return the PC back to their default XP loss, but would fall no further than that.

Some kind of creatures that ressurect the body as with a raise spell, in return for some kind of price - switching deities, items of a particular value, taking something 'bad' with them back to the world of the living.

Meeting henchmen, probably shadows, that offer to aid you in the dungeons, in return for a 'lift' back to the prime.

Some hidden way to project their image back to the prime, perhaps in some rare cases even rejoining their party as a phantasm (for a limited time)

And just various little secrets dotted around.

The upshot is that a character could simply choose to repsawn and take the death penalty, or spend some time in the Fugue exploring and adventuring. The second route would be a much quicker way for many 'to get back to where they were' in terms of XP, but would be entirely optional.

It would be a fair bit of work though, and the idea probably shouldn't impact on the issue being discussed, as stuff like this could well never happen. I only wish I had more time to work on Areltih, which given how many hours a week I spend in the toolset already would almost certainly be bad for my health.

[gilescorey]

..It would be a fair bit of work though, and the idea probably shouldn't impact on the issue being discussed, as stuff like this could well never happen. I only wish I had more time to work on Areltih, which given how many hours a week I spend in the toolset already would almost certainly be bad for my health.

That's a shame. All that sounds cool as hell. I went exploring once, saw the Wall and the NPC - I liked how -delete_character'ing was A Thing that you can do with it, always thought it was neat.

[OxtailSoup]

I adore the current fugue; for years the OOC XP reaper felt like cheating despite the cost, as it wasn't IC and lacked presence.

The new system where I am able to come back because my deity is actively recovering me (rather than an arbitrary XP penalty) is awesome, with the physical penalties after to make me recover in the prime is great fun to RP through.

If anything, I'd like to see the RPR tick continue in fugue, with a requirement to craft something ethereal to escape (for example, you must mine Astral Driftmetal to forge chains and shackle a baatezu and bargain for your release / sell the shackles to a divine agent for their use, to pay for your escape). Forging such chains in fugue could depend on piety level for your rolls.

As to remembering, I haven't seen any issues with that, one way or the other.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

What RP can be done in the fugue now that can't be done in the fugue if you can't remember what happens within it?

Anything that includes remembering what happened to you in the fugue. As an example, some characters are from areas so backwater they genuinely don't believe in gods. Arelith is not a good locale for such, but what is to say someone doesn't arrive fresh off the boat as an unbeliever?

Then they go to the fugue, and they almost land in the walls as a god (!!!) sends a divine emissary to judge them. Suddenly, at the last moment, someone revives them.

The player has the choice to not recall the fugue if they want- but if it's against the rules, they now go back to being an unbeliever, whether that's the direction they want for their story or not.

Perhaps someone evil gets tormented or almost captured by demons/devils, and it encourages them to change their ways- or, at their option, remain unaware and evil. Except if it's against the rules, they don't have an option.

Maybe a good character sees a faithless get absorbed by the plane- and they are so traumatized/repulsed that they decide the gods (or just Kelemvor/Jergal) are cruel. Maybe it shifts them a step towards evil, knowing that the gods use their souls as bargaining chips and building material.

These are three examples that didn't take me much time to come up with- I could go on and on. The point here, is that there is an option as long as it isn't against the rules, and the 5 Golden Rules should be sufficient to cover any douche moves without adding a rule that violates lore.

Making rules that violate lore should only happen if there's no other way to cope with a problem, or if the server is actively seeking to deviate from that specific lore at that time for a specific reason.

Violating lore to railroad RP is a terrible reason to add rules, IMO, and so far there are still no examples of Cheese that aren't covered by the Golden Rules.

[WildOrchid]

I've actually seen an increase in RP relating around the Fugue since the change, both in the Fugue and after being raised. Being that most of the people I spend time with are magic users, it's actually generated some very interesting conversations and RP at times.

I don't think that remembering what occurred in the Fugue is a bad thing for good RPers. I've seen some really good stories come out of death. The problem is going to be with the cheesy people, and frankly they are going to be cheesy in any situation.

[Ork]

I think this was a great change. It removes a vague rule and puts all the pressure back on the player to do what they will. The majority of us agree, remembering death is silly. Do we need a rule to enforce that? Honestly, the majority of characters will call out people saying they just died to "x" as a crazy.

[Cortex]

You can do all of the examples mentioned in the old style, except it will be "made up" (just like everything else in the game in a way).

I think this was a great change. It removes a vague rule and puts all the pressure back on the player to do what they will. The majority of us agree, remembering death is silly. Do we need a rule to enforce that? Honestly, the majority of characters will call out people saying they just died to "x" as a crazy.

The amount of times I've seen people say "X killed me but I'm alive again so let's punish X!" with people believing and following after for some reason or another is disgusting. Though, unrelated to remembering what happens in the fugue, more so what happens before death.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

You can do all of the examples mentioned in the old style, except it will be "made up" (just like everything else in the game in a way).

I disagree. If you remember nothing of what happened, you have no good IC reason to have a major paradigm shift of the character, other than 'I'm going to metagame a vague rationalization of familiarity with something the rules say isn't allowed." People can be punished for role-play everyone involved enjoys by enforced amnesia- only people ruining the fun of other people can be punished by the Golden Rules.

The amount of times I've seen people say "X killed me but I'm alive again so let's punish X!" with people believing and following after for some reason or another is disgusting. Though, unrelated to remembering what happens in the fugue, more so what happens before death.

What's disgusting about it, EDIT: unless you're talking about a 24 hour engagement rule-break? (I guess I could be okay with enforcing a 24-hour delay before someone killing you is a valid reason to PvP said killer, including friends of the victim. Would that help)?

From the other side of the fence, I personally find it lazy for someone to expect clicking on someone until they're dead to solve all their anonymity problems. Like I said, if the coma patient wakes up, the person who put them in the coma is screwed if they didn't do something to conceal their identity.

If the player can't be bothered to work things out with their target OOC, or at least attempt to disguise themselves IC in order to make it more interesting for the target, why should their target grant them the benefit of not remembering something there is no good world-based reason for them to forget?

Why shouldn't a murderer be required to cover their tracks with something more than click-kill? How is it any better for the player who got killed to automatically be deprived of any method of discovery (because in this other version, it's against the rules to remember).

Unless you want to enforce perma-death on everyone (which will Never Happen<TM>), the only value death will ever have on a story is the value the players involved agree to assign to it.

[Dinosaur Space Program]

I might be in the minority here, but I actually like the maze, I RP in the Fugue, and I like the death penalty changes immensely. Death penalties should not influence IC decisions or actions by characters. Changing them to be heavier or lighter should not directly influence RP. If it is, then maybe those people are applying far too much OOC knowledge to their actions.

At this point, I am a very casual player, and knowing that no matter What happens in my limited play time, I come out ahead on experience? It is very encouraging to me that eventually I will actually level. Eventually.

I admit, the Fugue changes have not actually impacted my RP or dungeoneering habits at all. I like the penalty after respawn as well because it's a cheerful reminder that you got messed up by something and didn't have mitigation for it.

When the policy on the Fugue turned to 'You can remember', I admit I was a little put off by it. But anymore, I have embraced that fact and it is generally just not spoken about afterwards even if my character might have a better idea than before what exactly went on. Death isn't a nebulous void in FR canon. It's actually fairly well documented, you can (while alive) go visit and hang out, and generally the setting has pretty express guidelines as to what happens to you which most people know about in at least vague terms going in.

To me, the only point of contention really is remembering how you died. But there is disguise now, there is talking to your killer and agreeing to RP terms as well, etc. so it isn't like it was back in the day when no one had a way of concealing their identity or misleading people outside of asking you if you will play along.

In the end, I guess I am perfectly A-Okay with things at present. I have heard of people cheesing the system, but it is always the kind of behavior that is purely OOC and doesn't take advantage of the Fugue being remembered, so it makes no difference.

I think a lot of the behavior people are complaining about would exist Regardless of the changes, at least in my experience. And the 'Don't remember the Fugue' would still have examples of people telling people about the Fugue and breaking your immersion regardless. In this case, at least there isn't punishment for how people want to RP their experiences or condemnation OOC about how terrible they are about such things.

I think leaving the door open on it is fine. Let people inform their own RP as they wish and the ones abusing things will get caught out regardless. A formal call on the 'I remembered where we died, let me go get a rescue party for those corpses!' is warranted though from the Dev/DM crew.

[The GrumpyCat]

Small confused point - there's a difference between remembering what hapened in the fugue, and remembering what happened shortly before you entered it. Even if the whole 'remembering the fugue' gets switched back to the old style (that you cannot recall anything during death,) that doesn't stop people from remembering what happened to send them into the fugue. E.g. That Jhonny Meany killed them.

(edit - for the record I've no great opinion on the issue either way.)

[Durvayas]

THAT SAID: What do people think of adding dangers to the Fugue? What would said dangers be, and what could the penalties be for falling prey to them?

My original thought in regards to expanding the fugue was to eventually include some of the city. A place of lore, exploration and weird deity stuff. I can't quite remember all the ideas, but it did go something like this...

XP penalty raised again.

Defeating creatures in some kind of very dynamic dungeon, and just bad encounters along the way (as well as passing various tests) would allow one to lessen the death penalty, until there wasn't one at all.

Losing contents/trials would only ever return the PC back to their default XP loss, but would fall no further than that.

Some kind of creatures that ressurect the body as with a raise spell, in return for some kind of price - switching deities, items of a particular value, taking something 'bad' with them back to the world of the living.

Meeting henchmen, probably shadows, that offer to aid you in the dungeons, in return for a 'lift' back to the prime.

Some hidden way to project their image back to the prime, perhaps in some rare cases even rejoining their party as a phantasm (for a limited time)

And just various little secrets dotted around.

The upshot is that a character could simply choose to repsawn and take the death penalty, or spend some time in the Fugue exploring and adventuring. The second route would be a much quicker way for many 'to get back to where they were' in terms of XP, but would be entirely optional.

It would be a fair bit of work though, and the idea probably shouldn't impact on the issue being discussed, as stuff like this could well never happen. I only wish I had more time to work on Areltih, which given how many hours a week I spend in the toolset already would almost certainly be bad for my health.

This all sounds amazing.

[Cortex]

@Aelryn, I had whole paragraphs about it but it was getting too off topic and I'm too lazy to debate something that isn't even the OP's problem or something new. (Remembering pre-death stuff)

A formal call on the 'I remembered where we died, let me go get a rescue party for those corpses!' is warranted though from the Dev/DM crew.

This is something I'm very curious about. Why is it a rule break? It's IC information, why shouldn't my character use it? Someone even mentioned a while back ritualistic group suicide to have shekret meetings and then respawn/have someone revive them, is that also a rule break?

If I were to take the fugue for what it is ICly right now, none of my characters would ever be afraid of death, because it's actually death and not left open ended, prior to this one could RP as having a near death experience and surviving or some such (in order to avoid some of the 'whoopsies I had died but my god revived me again'), now if you die, you're there, in the death area which is an IC place, someone sees you and they know you're dead there too. Death is just painfully casual right now.

I would appreciate some DM in put what is perceived as rule break and what is just "poor roleplay", because one thing gets you punished, the other doesn't (often) and affects more the server quality than easily mended rule breakers.

[Erin Greene]

I think one of the reasons a subdual mode has never been put into place is relatively simple.

It creates the mechanical "idea" that people have to submit to being captured, tortured, or enslaved, when it has always been Arelith rules that no one can ever be FORCED to RP those such things, or even allow them to happen.

It's actually specifically on the Wiki, or was, that you need OOC permission to ever take someone prisoner or torture them in any way. That even if such a system were available, a person is perfectly within their rights to go "I slip out of the bonds and run for my freedom" and force you to actually kill them.

Because the simple fact of the matter is that there are going to be people who are not interested in that form of RP, because it's not the "Heroic fun" they chose to play NWN for.

And if there were a subdual mode, people could point at themselves having used it and say
"I captured you fair and square, you have to let me"

[JediMindTrix]

It creates the mechanical "idea" that people have to submit to being captured, tortured, or enslaved, when it has always been Arelith rules that no one can ever be FORCED to RP those such things, or even allow them to happen.

Instead, they're just forced into the Fugue.

[Kreydis]

You've many options to make sure that it doesn't get to the point of PvP. Even while being hostile to player characters every now and then. So don't pull that silly card, considering that it's either RP you might not want, and likely could've prevented, or a exp hit.

[JediMindTrix]

You've many options to make sure that it doesn't get to the point of PvP. Even while being hostile to player characters every now and then. So don't pull that silly card, considering that it's either RP you might not want, and likely could've prevented, or a exp hit.

It's not a silly card. Theoretical, rarely used options and what actually happens the majority of the time are two different things. The only reliable way to capture someone is to kill them first. I'm not even saying that PvP is bad, but I dislike it being the only consistently viable option to accomplish a capture. For example, in the sense of guards, I hear far more stories of 'runners' than people who stand and engage in emoting with said guards. After years of dealing with the former I don't blame anyone for just PvPing and raising someone inside of a cell.

[Durvayas]

It creates the mechanical "idea" that people have to submit to being captured, tortured, or enslaved, when it has always been Arelith rules that no one can ever be FORCED to RP those such things, or even allow them to happen.

Almost sounds like you don't think people should eat IC consequences for IC actions.

[furryn]

XP penalty raised again.

Awww man!

It creates the mechanical "idea" that people have to submit to being captured, tortured, or enslaved, when it has always been Arelith rules that no one can ever be FORCED to RP those such things, or even allow them to happen.

uhm. If you are on an RP server, I think you should be willing to go along with a lot of things put upon you by other PC's. It's the ability to submit your character to the actions of other characters that make RP so much fun. (though, there has to be a limit also, some people can't stand torture RP, and that's fair) but also denying other people their attempts at doing things to your PC is just taking and not giving.

[Tegan]

...

Eugh... I really hope XP penalty won't be increased again, with or without this proposed change. I remember before the change where I died twice due to fairly silly misshaps and lost half a level in the epic (About 12,000 XP). I never leveled that character again.

It was awful having to waste like DAYS worth of RP XP or hours of adventuring over something like that. I know some people are complaining deaths are inconsequential now, but death was fairly inconsequential back then to whoever wanted to RP it as inconsequential, quite honestly. For those of us who HATED leveling, it was just really painful, frustrating, and altogether despairing moments.

[Kreydis]

It's not a silly card. Theoretical, rarely used options and what actually happens the majority of the time are two different things. ... For example, in the sense of guards, I hear far more stories of 'runners' than people who stand and engage in emoting with said guards. After years of dealing with the former I don't blame anyone for just PvPing and raising someone inside of a cell.

Because getting captured by a guard in many many circumstances leads to your character being nearly non playable if you get sent to jail. Not to mention by technicality unless something changed, you're not supposed to raise anyone without consent because of said jail literally making your character unplayable until relevant PC's get online to dispose judgement.

If you are on an RP server, I think you should be willing to go along with a lot of things put upon you by other PC's. It's the ability to submit your character to the actions of other characters that make RP so much fun.

What's fun to you is not fun to others. Give or take is a balancing factor between players, and the only way to "Enforce" it is by positive reinforcement, AKA RPR. Hence why many people would rather run then do emote battling.

[Ork]

If you're ignoring something to avoid consequences, you're going to have a bad time.

The sort of RP that involves this is pretty lazy, and usually players that deal with it on a consistent basis get worn out too. Don't expect to "do shit" and not have to pay for it later. If you're going to break a law as a criminal in RP, be prepared for the possibility of jail time.

[Kreydis]

If you're ignoring something to avoid consequences, you're going to have a bad time.

...

be prepared for the possibility of jail time.

You're right but you're wrong. So you're going to force them in jail and effectively snuggle a bugbear them over because you're tired of dealing with it? (HA! I like the creativity of the censorship of swear words.)

Either way stuffs getting way off track, it's the 3rd page rule.