Okay, time to rediscuss this....

[theCountofMonteCristo]

no matter the mechanical consequences, people will either RP death as important. Or not.

If Death was a minor inconvenience and I died after a big build up of RP which resulted in a battle; I would RP my death as important.

If I'm going through a dungeon and meet a random Drow whose RP consists of "Die kivvil!" then no, I'm probably not going to give that death very much weight.

As it is, having died 'recently' (as in after the update), all the mechanics encouraged was for me to play a different game for the rest of my evening.

The problem about death not being taken seriously is not a mechanical problem but a mentality problem. There is no solution with mechanics. No matter how harsh, you'll always get PvP junkies saying they want more. They want more consequences for it. No matter how light, you'll still get the good roleplayers RP'ing effects from deaths.

Edit: I am actually okay with the 20 minutes in the death plane. I just wish there was a bit more to do than stare at the portal waiting. I also don't get why your roleplay bonus does not function in this IC area.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Four days? no. A lot is going to happen in that time, and in any serious conflict, you're guaranteed to get into at least a second or third fight during the same week.

I'm sorry for quoting your post specifically, Durvayas. I'm targeting the quoted sentiment, not you as a player, and other people seem to be echoing your sentiment.

According to this sentiment, fighting in a 'serious' conflict means you will get into two or three fights during the same seven day period, even if you were slain and your corpse mutilated, requiring divine intervention of your deity to come back to life.

Let me ask- how can we as a community consider any conflict that results in the death of and mutilation of said person's corpse multiple times over a 5-6 day period (one to two months IC) to be a serious conflict? In a conflict taken seriously, these people would not be getting up and running back out to the front lines. In a serious conflict, your slayer should not have to consider you again once they've slain you until the conclusion of the current conflict.

Any manner of conflict-based death conducted in any other method is automatically a case of trivial death.

To me, the expectation that you should be able to get back up and go back out and fight and die again in such a short period of time, with no negative repercussions for the character to make their life less convenient, is more than adequate justification to make death hurt a little more.

[One Two Three Five]

Interesting duality in that the people who are going after the same people multiple times a week aren't punished with any harsher system. Death has to suck and have weight and meaning, but killing is meaningless. Strange. Maybe if they both had weight people would care. Oh well.

[gilescorey]

If killing were suddenly "meaningful" then levelling would be a lot more harsh.

[chris a gogo]

It is a punishment script it doesn't add anything it only takes away so it is a punishment script no matter how you try to dress it up,it is what it is.

[Iwanttobethegirlwiththemostcake]

As someone who does not like and does not initiate pvp, the current system does nothing to add to my experience. All but one or two of my pvp experiences on this server have been initiated by someone else, and I can only recall one instance where I was given the opportunity for any other outcome than death. Most of those situations were also with my characters being a significantly lower level than the attacker.

Sure, death should matter. The people that I play with frequently and myself have always RP'd our deaths as significant.

And yes, I do agree there should be some consequence for dying, but adding additional negative effects to a death (pvp) that was probably already frustrating, inconvenient, unwanted, and likely not fun doesn't do anything to add to the game.

[Trunx]

Interesting duality in that the people who are going after the same people multiple times a week aren't punished with any harsher system. Death has to suck and have weight and meaning, but killing is meaningless. Strange. Maybe if they both had weight people would care. Oh well.

Why should killing have meaning? Practically every character is a mass murderer with thousands of kills. The entire game is about killing and being a killer. That's what adventurers really are.

[JediZero]

Why should killing have meaning? Practically every character is a mass murderer with thousands of kills. The entire game is about killing and being a killer. That's what adventurers really are.

By that logic, practically everything we kill comes back, just as it was. Ergo we should as well.

Killing should have meaning because ultimately, we are collaborators of a world's story. If you're going to defeat someone and make them have to wait 20 minutes, and potentially up to four days to no longer have any mechanical consequences to said attack, it is completely fair to expect *something* in return. D&D is a game of give and take, you sacrifice X to get better at Y, or sacrifice Y to get better at X. Assassins sacrifice skill levels in order to get a more powerful sneak attack and the ability to do shadow magic. Palemasters sacrifice spell levels to become more durable. Scimitar weapon masters sacrifice their dignity to become OP.

You're making a choice to kill someone, and if the killed has a mechanical consequence for it, it's only fair for the potential for said mechanical consequence to backfire on the killer as well. You're sacrificing your safety by killing someone. My proposal would be: Yeah, You get a mark on your character, same as the four day one. . .And if you die you suffer the exact same penalties, as if you'd died multiple times from PVP. So yeah, you can PVP and be a kickass powerbuild who waves his e-willy about and in everyone's faces, but when you ultimately fall or die to someone who's more clever, more powerful, or brings enough friends? You get to eat crap just like everyone who you beat down.

Risk/reward. Wanna be a big bad PVPer? Gotta take the lumps along with it. Doesn't have to 'make sense' IC, it makes sense mechanically.

That said: I look at this system and remember how many times awesome suggestions were turned down because it could be 'too easily abused', and I scratch my head in confusion.

Following the 24 hour PVP rules? In four days you can *Ruin* a person's fun on that character. And you can keep it going, consistently. All it takes is them not being high enough level to do anything (And good luck leveling with the penalties) about it, or not being able to get anyone to help due to playtimes differing. There will be someone who leaves over this because they literally feel that there is nothing they can do. Aside from, I don't know. Just not playing for four days. And if you're making a mechanic where the best way to deal with the mechanic is to just not play? It's a bad mechanic.

tl; dr:
It does nothing for RP, it's easily abused to drive someone from the server, and ultimately if your goal is to get people to not play the game, that's a *really* bad goal to have.

[If Valor Were Inches]

I experienced this system yesterday, not as the dead but the killer. I tried to subdual first actually, as a guard might do, but doing this without gloves was killing her so she had to use lethal force (But it did drag out and make a very close battle of what would have been a lopsided fight otherwise.). Naturally she was discouraged from raising, so the enemy just sat in the fugue for twenty minutes and played again, saw him and awkwardness ensued. While I guess this was an improvement of the five minutes before awkwardness ensued, on the other side, I'd hate to be staring at a portal for twenty minutes, and the awkward moment was really just delayed here. It does give a chance for the party to clear out and tie loose ends, if that's enough time.

My suggestions:

-RP Tick even in death. I feel like this is the simplest change, and an unnecessary take away.
-A cookie to clerics. "True" Resurrection would be very neat and allow the desired revival story without the "Divine intervention" line you come up with. This should be expensive/difficult, a mix of high amount of gold and rare gems/items etc. Since this would probably take a while, it'd help make death more "meaningful".
-Also a way to remove the penalties. Not necessarily class specific, maybe multiple ways to lessen the penalty, reduce the time, or both, but no way to outright eliminate them.
-Make the Fugue an adventure. Maybe souls don't even end up in the same place twice. If not an adventure, give it something more to interact with.

[Trunx]

You're making a choice to kill someone, and if the killed has a mechanical consequence for it, it's only fair for the potential for said mechanical consequence to backfire on the killer as well. You're sacrificing your safety by killing someone.

Yes, the mechanical consequence is that you can fail. That's the backfire effect. Killing other people is dangerous because they get a vote in their fate as well and might just kill you back. And it creates further conflict. Eventually someone who kills for no reason is going to become hunted and have to try the shoe on the other foot.

[JediZero]

Yes, the mechanical consequence is that you can fail. That's the backfire effect. Killing other people is dangerous because they get a vote in their fate as well and might just kill you back. A

Yes, the level 10 when versus a level 30 really has a lot of options when faced with someone who intends fully to attack and kill, regardless of RP, begging, or even attempted bribery. Choices such as: Running and dying, fighting and dying, and just curling up into a ball and dying.

[Iceborn]

What our dwarven-hating friend above said is something that I meant to raise many times, in several tones of mocking skepticism. This time it goes without that tone.

Increasing the time to 20 minutes in the fugue with the justification of "concluding the RP and preventing awkward encounters" is... really shortsighted, because as long as the characters involved don't simply log or deliberately hide in a quarter, guess what, it's going to happen again and again.

[Trunx]

Yes, the mechanical consequence is that you can fail. That's the backfire effect. Killing other people is dangerous because they get a vote in their fate as well and might just kill you back. A

Yes, the level 10 when versus a level 30 really has a lot of options when faced with someone who intends fully to attack and kill, regardless of RP, begging, or even attempted bribery. Choices such as: Running and dying, fighting and dying, and just curling up into a ball and dying.

Or making a story out of it.

But that's such an edge case that it's hardly even worth discussing. When is a level 30 going to be killing level 10s without a proper reason, without giving them any choice and refusing to accept any substitute? Almost never.

[JediZero]

Or making a story out of it.

Dear diary,

I died again to that orc that swore a blood feud against me. I can't do anything because I literally cannot carry my gear. this game sucks.

Sincerely,
lev'al Tenn

[Trunx]

Or making a story out of it.

Dear diary,

I died again. I can't do anything because I literally cannot carry my gear. this game sucks.

Sincerely,
lev'al Tenn

What stops level 10s from carrying their gear? A strange thing to say.

[cptcuddlepants]

Or making a story out of it.

I'm not really sure there's much story to be had in "And so, some weirdo and his friends magically appeared out of nowhere and killed us".

It's happened to me before. My friends (who, with the exception of one person, were all around level 10 or so) either logged out or sat down by the spawn and griped in tells to each other. Good RP, right?

But that's such an edge case that it's hardly even worth discussing. When is a level 30 going to be killing level 10s without a proper reason, without giving them any choice and refusing to accept any substitute? Almost never.

Very often, actually...

[JediZero]

Or making a story out of it.

Dear diary,

I died again. I can't do anything because I literally cannot carry my gear. this game sucks.

Sincerely,
lev'al Tenn

What stops level 10s from carrying their gear? A strange thing to say.

Am I incorrect in my understanding of the penalties to PVP corpse bashing? You get massive stat penalties and spell failure?

[Iceborn]

The STR penalties were removed with the last update.

However, I'm pretty certain that "I got killed, I got better" is pretty crappy RP by default and should be kept to a minimum.

[Trunx]

Am I incorrect in my understanding of the penalties to PVP corpse bashing? You get massive stat penalties and spell failure?

You are. There is nothing that stops anyone from carrying their gear and there is no spell failure. But I find it strange you're conjuring up all these hypothetical scenarios when you don't even know what the penalties are. So that's all this is, hypothetical never-happened, painting-devils-on-the-wall scenarios.

[JediZero]

Am I incorrect in my understanding of the penalties to PVP corpse bashing? You get massive stat penalties and spell failure?

You are. There is nothing that stops anyone from carrying their gear and there is no spell failure. But I find it strange you're conjuring up all these hypothetical scenarios when you don't even know what the penalties are. So that's all this is, hypothetical never-happened, painting-devils-on-the-wall scenarios.

I was misinformed then, my apologies.

However that in itself does not make my argument invalid. It happens more than you think. It also doesn't change the fact that even if the strength penalty is no longer there, you still can do basically nothing. Dex build? Congrats, your strength is still there so you can at least walk around without being slow as a snail. Too bad you can't hit anything or dodge worth a damn. Getting into PVP and getting bashed basically means until you're back to normal? You can't do anything.

Very often, actually...

[Trunx]

Am I incorrect in my understanding of the penalties to PVP corpse bashing? You get massive stat penalties and spell failure?

You are. There is nothing that stops anyone from carrying their gear and there is no spell failure. But I find it strange you're conjuring up all these hypothetical scenarios when you don't even know what the penalties are. So that's all this is, hypothetical never-happened, painting-devils-on-the-wall scenarios.

I was misinformed then, my apologies.

However that in itself does not make my argument invalid. It happens more than you think.

Very often, actually...

It means your argument is entirely hypothetical and the scenario you describe hasn't actually happened. In my view, that means it doesn't have much weight as an argument why the death penalties are a bad thing.

[Iceborn]

Trunx, what do you do when you get bashed?
Out of burning curiosity.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I'll echo what 12345 and Count said, in that no mechanical penalty is going to make individuals roleplay death "better" or more "meaningful." When penalties become too harsh, you are not going to undertake the additional roleplay of being an invalid for X time - you would rather start trying to regain everything you lost.

When penalties are too light, you can also ignore the idea of death, because it was only a mechanical inconvenience, a little blip on the radar.

Death, and how you die, is entirely contextual. I think the big failing is that we're trying to create some kind of blanket system to cover all of these different stories of death.

Why don't we let players choose instead?

What if you got ganked by a death squad unfairly, even amounting to a DM Report, so you choose Respawn Option #1?
What if you got accidentally murdered in friendly fire, which should have some consequence, but not put you out of the game, so you choose Respawn Option #2?
What if you die on the cliff by the sea in a storm in a duel with your arch-rival, and fell to your "death", so you choose Respawn Option #3?

We are going to keep circling back on these topics because people have too different of opinions, and each death is too unique. We should cease creating "catch all" death mechanic systems and instead create player-chosen respawn penalties as they see fit. If people abuse the system, oh well, that always happens, let the DMs go in. But mechanics of choice will at least reward players for their competence and their commitment to the story.

[Trunx]

Trunx, what do you do when you get bashed?
Out of burning curiosity.

Never happened.

[Iceborn]

Trunx, what do you do when you get bashed?
Out of burning curiosity.

Never happened.