Memory Loss on Death: How do you Roleplay this?

[Aellowyn]

I've noticed a growing trend of people using memory loss as an acceptable means to claim someone else died in PvP, in character.

Example: Susie comes home but can't remember what happened when she went to Bob's shop after hours. Reaction from others, "She must have died when she went to Bob's", "Bob must have done it".

I've personally found this pushing towards metagaming - I'm not a DM so don't quote me on this, though maybe one will chime in.

My reasoning is that we as players know this out of character, as a Rule on the Astrolabe and sideeffect of PvP death.
Meanwhile in character, living in an interactive, dangerous and magical world, there are many many other reasons someone may lose their memory: Magic, fiends, fae, drinking, falling down stairs, getting hit in the head, shadows that eat your memories on the shadow plane, medical issues and so on.

That being said, I generally find it easier to assume drinking or a bump on the head, but I'm curious what others use to explain memory loss and for those that do, how the conclusion is reached that it was PvP death to have caused it?

[Ork]

This certainly breaks the spirit of the rule and the letter of the rule.

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.
https://astrolabe.nwnarelith.com/rules

This is reportable behavior.

[Ping14]

That being said, I generally find it easier to assume drinking or a bump on the head, but I'm curious what others use to explain memory loss and for those that do, how the conclusion is reached that it was PvP death to have caused it?

*EDIT strikethrough: Apparently I didn't read that part of the quote and just gave some excuses/explanations I've used for memory loss.

• Drugs. (got a spiked drink, pressured to do some, etc)
• Alcohol. (Must've drank too much that day then)
• Extreme tiredness. (Hey, didn't we just go to slay dragons that day you went to a meeting once?)
• Magic, in general. (Didn't we just encounter some fey that day? Or if the PVPer is a casting one, it could be an illusion spell that everything just went fine that day, nothing bad happened. This talk of murder is just hogwash!)
• Forgetfulness. (You remember talking to someone but not what about - I know it happens RL, so could be ingame too. So everything went fine, just that your memories were a little foggy. If its a meeting that needs decisive action afterwards, just tell its inconclusive, no demands or whatsoever yet, but they are still thinking of it)

I personally just go with the last encounter with a monster if it's a dungeon death and got altar/scroll raised. You're basically on the edge right there. While you really did die, the time for resurrection is just a blip.
For a PVP death, if I were raised by my companion or the killer, I suppose I could remember some of the fight. Doesn't go against the spirit of the rule if no one will investigate it as it is not a mystery murder, but an all-out melee. Should they still investigate it, I would just refrain from such RP and make up some excuse (Ugh. Just thinking about it makes my head hurt, better ask the others. Battles can be chaotic, you know). If it's an isolated PVP death (IE, set-up assassination... no witnesses, no whatsoever. Just you and the murderer's cronies. Or it could be many of you, and it's a TPK from the PVP), I would definitely remember less. I would just leave clues as to where I'm going and who with, and go just foggy there (What I find works best is: Oh, we failed to meet that day, surely you must be mistaken. Or I remember our march towards that cursed place, then there's chaos, could be the orcs? could be the bandits? Then a shining light, its probably a dream, a shared dream for that matter. What about you, what did you dreamt of this trine?).

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.

Just stay out of it and don't go yelling: "I was murdered!". It defeats the purpose of giving them the win. It also makes future engagements with the killer less awkward. (Oh, I don't believe we've met my good man. What is it that you want from me again?). But there are times that the killer wants you to remember, if so, then maybe you could - just don't go adding what you've remembered in the pending investigation. Killer wants you to remember so you can be intimidated, so you can be more fearful of them in future encounters - not to rat them out. Consider it your excuse for the silence.

And if you're a witness or a survivor in the ordeal. You can jog their memory a bit but don't probe too much. (Oh, you're definitely with us that day, you never missed it.) The more you probe the victim, the more it becomes more awkward (and trivializes death).

[Subtext]

That.

I suppose depending on where one went before dying, some assumptions or theories are safe to make - missing a few hours and feeling like crap after a visit to Andunor might instill a lot more concern compared to the same after hanging out and socializing in Guldorand.

I think the safe reaction would be vague speculation before lying down because the character probably feels terrible...and otherwise leaving the matter of their own death simply be.
It's a scary road to tread on anyway.

The difficult part is getting proactively information dumped by eye witnesses. But even then, there's cause for some apprehension to pursue that actively since that person evidently overpowered my character.
And some friends might be on it anyway, because hey. They actually -do- know.

[PowerWord Rage]

Memory Loss on Death is actually a means for Player to escape PVP shennigans because if you died, you effectively don't even remember an ounce of it, much less talk or speak about it. Whenever you've a headache, you don't try to remember anything but stop thinking because you want it to go away.

I wish that people will look towards PVP death as a means to an end rather than trying to keep digging and digging on why you died etc which makes a loop.

[Anomandaris]

The tendency of metagaming the cause of one's own death is out of control these days. It's also important for us to reinforce among our own friends and peers that this is not acceptable behavior, and not enable it.

If you see someone starting to RP this memory loss, you can reinforce this IC, narratively suggesting alternatives, instead of validating this hypothesis.

For me, literally the last of any number of plausible explanations in the list is foul play and "I died." The rules are pretty clear here..

There needs to be a clear, hard line on this, in accordance with the rules, or people will continue to rationalize and justify their assuming certain things.

People now "tell people where they're going" in advance, then they have someone tell them after they die "oh you went here and never came back and have memory loss, you must have died." The entire thing is contrived to exploit and circumvent the death amnesia.

Metagaming is often far more destructive and detrminental to IC narratives and RP than PvP violations IMO. It should be dealt with more strictly, as it creates irreversible damage to character/narrative archs that can be hard to "put back in the box," after someone goes and shouts to the world something they shouldn't have.

[Darkstorn42]

Be the RP you want to see. Also report the behavior.
"I was going to Bob's, but then I woke up in the farmlands."
"You died."
"That's ridiculous. That would assume that I some how miraculously came back to life, and I would remember coming back to life. It hurts, like last time the cleric raised me in that dungeon."

---

"Hmm, I seem to have some missing time."
"Well, retrace your steps."
"I was going to Bobs ... then nothing."
"Sounds like you might have a drinking problem."

---

1: "I was going to Bob's, but then I woke up in the farmlands."
2: "You died."
1: "What?"
3: "Hey 2, quit being insane. People don't just walk back into town after they die. Unless they are a zombie. Hey 1, are you a zombie?"

[In Sorrow We Trust]

i will typically frame it as if it never happened. most of these PvP deaths happen to me with very little narrative, so i have 0 incentive to give it much weight.

because the rules don't allow a lot of doing much else, which is why personally i think they should change to where: unless you specifically agree upon it being a death with your killer, as the person who was killed, it was not an actual death. just something you narrowly escaped.

death isnt even a viable consequence half the time because its too loosely played. it has little to no meaning behind it, because it kinda cant unless you specifically choose to take the L. part of the problem is people will brag about having killed you and then you're supposed to somehow respond to that.

[Paint]

I'm personally of the opinion that the memory loss rules are pretty heavy-handed even if I agree with both the intents and the current results, so it's hard for me to give an unbiased opinion here.

In general though, if my character does not have a way of knowing they died, I tend to assume that they don't know that they did, and they won't tell people that they did.

I find the incredibly nebulous 'death sickness,' something you could only personally recognize if you had ever died and been resurrected in that specific arelith way, to be terribly flimsy and a great producer of bad roleplay.

I asked for an official ruling on ways around the death amnesia such as all involved parties consenting to waive the death amnesia in the event that it's cumbersome for roleplay -- understanding the risks and full-well knowing the spirit of the rules is to prevent just the worst kind of roleplay. Grumpycat gave me a tenuous, "It's probably fine," but I never really did get an official answer.

[Cuchilla]

I find the rules are very specific about it, so I'll just bring the full quote:

"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.
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.
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.
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 character 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.

If something is unclear, please reach out to a Dungeon Master. We're here to help!"

[D4wN]

I think the problem goes both ways.

Yes, having people jump to conclusions on memory loss being related to death is a problem. Everything about this has already been said and I don't need to add to that.

On the flipside however I think PVPers also need to ask the question with these rules: 'What story am I creating?'

If you go and ambush a single person and kill them or ambush a small group and kill all of them, they can't remember anything. So while you and your friends can boast about taking that person or group down, it creates 0 RP for the other side unless you go and taunt them with it I guess. But even here are issues:

---

Them: "Haha! We killed you!"
You or your friends: "But... I'm / they are alive?"

Or

Them: "Look! We killed you. Here's your ear!"
You / Your friends: "But.. I /they still have both ears and that's.. just an ear? I can't identify someone by an ear?"

Which also brings me to the silliness of ear collection. Other than identifying a race, I would never have my character ICly be able to identify someone based on an ear. It's honestly just silly.

---

You also have the issue where the rules state you have to take death seriously and RP it with respect if/when you die. But.. How can you when your character doesn't actually remember they died? It's sort of contradictory. You as a player can try and respect it by being in pain, by having wounds, by not remembering. But then you get accused of metagaming. And if you don't do any of that, you get accused of not respecting death. It's a catch-22.

PVP should be a result of an escalation in a conflict story and should never /be/ the story. It should be collaborative and a fun experience on both sides. Yes, PVP can be fun for both the losing and winning side. I do believe PVP is an excellent story telling tool, but it is ultimately just that. A story telling tool. This notion to PVP just to take a win and kill some people for no actual reason other than 'it's fun for me and my buddies' doesn't belong on a RP server.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

Them: "Look! We killed you. Here's your ear!"
You / Your friends: "But.. I /they still have both ears and that's.. just an ear? I can't identify someone by an ear?"

Which also brings me to the silliness of ear collection. Other than identifying a race, I would never have my character ICly be able to identify someone based on an ear. It's honestly just silly.

a good argument for removing trophies altogether. i've never seen it lead to good roleplay. just posturing.

people can make their own trophies with special items... maybe with agreement of the other person.

[Marsi]

i will typically frame it as if it never happened. most of these PvP deaths happen to me with very little narrative, so i have 0 incentive to give it much weight.

because the rules don't allow a lot of doing much else, which is why personally i think they should change to where: unless you specifically agree upon it being a death with your killer, as the person who was killed, it was not an actual death. just something you narrowly escaped.

death isnt even a viable consequence half the time because its too loosely played. it has little to no meaning behind it, because it kinda cant unless you specifically choose to take the L. part of the problem is people will brag about having killed you and then you're supposed to somehow respond to that.

I don't think anyone should be able to "die" on Arelith unless they roll. It makes no narrative sense. I don't think the people who want stricter, harder to ignore, more resource heavy and hands on death/resurrection systems have really reckoned with the reality of the medium we are all playing on, which is not a hardcore single player RPG.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

I don't think anyone should be able to "die" on Arelith unless they roll. It makes no narrative sense. I don't think the people who want stricter, harder to ignore, more resource heavy and hands on death/resurrection systems have really reckoned with the reality of the medium we are all playing on, which is not a hardcore single player RPG.

yeah. i've seen several servers who make it a rule that a "death" isn't a death unless you're fully closuring the character. it works very well.

it's better if it's just a bad outcome, you get injured, you narrowly escape, or someone saves you and you wake up on the doctor bed with stitches. much better narrative overall than "oh, bob died again"

[The GrumpyCat]

Firstly – we primary ask that people roleplay FEAR OF DEATH rather than just death itself. This is less to do with the events AFTER the death and more before. In most (granted not all) situations where your character is literally going ‘Bwahaha! I laugh in your face! I don’t fear death. Kill me as much as you like!’ Is generally going to be frowned upon.

Secondly:
Roleplaying confusion/memory loss et cetera after death is fine and, indeed, mandated.
Roleplaying some amount of injury, trauma, weakness after death is also fine. In fact I’d recommend it.
Jumping to immediate conclusion that ‘Oh gods they must have died!’ is dependent on the situation and should be judged on a case by case basis.
If you meet Bob on the road after Bob had dinner with his friends Jane and Juliette, but he has a large gap in his memory, then the response ‘oh my god they must have murdered him!’ is not sensible
If you your last sight of Bob was being dragged screaming and crying into some bushes by cackling drow raiders singing 'we're gonna kill you! We're gonna kill you!'… it’s a more reasonable assumption.
Whatever the case, the victim should not be weaponising their own death to encourage or incite actions against their attackers, especially soon after the event. If you die to Drow Raiders on the Traders rout, don’t re-spawn going ‘Oh no, I was at the TRADERS ROUT when I just DON’T REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED!’
Your character should, by all rights, not exist any more. They shouldn’t be pushing any sort of vengeance narrative.

That said what other people discern or decide isn’t necessary under the victim’s control. But this is where things get murky, and it’s really difficult to give any over arching guideline.

Finally:
Regarding the ruling here I gave about it ‘probably’ being ok to be able to waver the Death Amnesia rules:

I asked for an official ruling on ways around the death amnesia such as all involved parties consenting to waive the death amnesia in the event that it's cumbersome for roleplay -- understanding the risks and full-well knowing the spirit of the rules is to prevent just the worst kind of roleplay. Grumpycat gave me a tenuous, "It's probably fine," but I never really did get an official answer.

My personal take on this is like the fixture rules.

Theoretically, you can only move/trash one fixture (that isn't yours) per 24 hours. Pragmatically we’re not as strict as all that. If you move five fixtures, and no one cares? Then that’s fine. Just be aware if someone does report it, you’ll be in the wrong.

Likewise, if for some reason your pc’s killer both want to waver the death rules, so you remember more of the event? That’s probably fine too… If John wants to raise you after an accidental death to do some more rp, for example. Or maybe you want to have a better recollection of the trauma before hand, for some nice, juicy character development… Chances are no one is likely to report that. But if we get reports on it, because for example you were saying ‘John killed me!’ on the notice boards – even if John gave you permission – then we'll have to follow up on it. So use your judgement very carefully there.

Finally please also note that each case is different and full of nuance, it’s difficult to make bold, simple rules about all this, as a lot is dependent on character and context.

[D4wN]

I don't think anyone should be able to "die" on Arelith unless they roll. It makes no narrative sense. I don't think the people who want stricter, harder to ignore, more resource heavy and hands on death/resurrection systems have really reckoned with the reality of the medium we are all playing on, which is not a hardcore single player RPG.

yeah. i've seen several servers who make it a rule that a "death" isn't a death unless you're fully closuring the character. it works very well.

it's better if it's just a bad outcome, you get injured, you narrowly escape, or someone saves you and you wake up on the doctor bed with stitches. much better narrative overall than "oh, bob died again"

Yep, I would be totally happy with a "respawn" on a doctor's bed and death not actually being a real thing unless you roll, but rather have it be an unconscious state or near death experience (being left for dead by your enemies). The whole "we killed you" argument just doesn't mean much when you're still walking around afterwards. I've also always found it awkward if my character is killed to then refer to the event as: "I read or was told that I was killed." And then people responding: "You look pretty alive to me!"

[Anomandaris]

Honoring death in your role-play doesn’t mean you need to refer to the death or be aware of it. Of course, explicitly role-playing around your own death when you’re not aware of it is not possible. It could mean simply that you, as a player acknowledge that your character was defeated. Whether you find that death narratively compelling or not it happened. You can choose how to approach conflict with said party moving forward, regardless of your character, knowing anything about its death.

Vengeance, a inspiration to uproot a particular evil, a deep seeded motivation to take down a champion of light who is preventing evil from spreading… these are all character motivations that can be modified after death. We can decide to no longer pursue as aggressively conflict with the party that killed us with the knowledge out of character to create a offramp for the conflict without our character having the knowledge directly. There are many ways to rationalize and justify this in character without knowledge of your death.

As far as being informed of your own death, and the fact that you’re still alive being cheesy, I don’t exactly disagree, but still, there are options here. Gods are a thing, resurrection, and raise dead spells are a thing. Maybe some traveling cleric saved you and left you at an inn to recover.

In either case you can act fearful of dying again instead of being flippant and disregarding the impact a potential death may have under character moving forward. My character rolled a one against a bodak at level 30 and wasn’t death warded while helping someone do a writ. They now take a wide breath around Bodaks despite being extremely powerful relative to a Bodak.

And while I do agree not all PVP is handled well or has good narrative support, I think it’s dangerous to rationalize our response to death based on our interpretation of the quality of the death. This is very subjective and we are biased as people. Would I roll my character for a one line PVP? No. Should I still acknowledge that my character died, instead of writing it off out of character, cause I didn’t like how the interaction was handled? No.

There is a concerning trend of baiting one’s own death to drive narrative or out of character consequences. I’ve seen people do it in the hub time and time again. I’ve also seen people do it in other places to trap the opposing player character into some in character consequences, when the nature of the death is inevitably meta gamed. In my opinion, this type of behavior is directly against the the rules and destructive to storytelling in a tremendous way, far more so than getting killed unceremoniously by Raiders while walking through the woods.

[30 RANGER FROM THE MOON]

rules are fine and all; they give a good baseline for "do not do this thing we clearly said not to do."

they will not, however, change how people by-and-large approach death, especially in terms of RP, and that's just by the nature of how death tends to happen in arelith.

i think people in this thread have accidentally outlined that truth. the Bodak example is a good one. it's far easier to take a PvE dungeon death and turn it into some roleplay. you're an adventurer, something bad happened to you, your friends witnessed it. it's The Game.

but when you're a "notorious" character or some some unlucky goober doing writs on the ice road, the dynamic is entirely different, and that's where the only "solution" really requires an insane amount of work. it's a cultural thing, and it can also feel very, very OOCly personal. (and sometimes it is!)

not corpse bashing everyone in sight after a fight needs to be Cool.
letting people go needs to be Cool.
not making 50,000 board posts about "haha we ganked you!" needs to be Cool.
even an element of WWE "kayfabe" can go a long way. "grrr, i beat that blasted paladin down, but he got away!" instead of 'oh look at this ear.'
that is all far easier to work with instead of "we killed them."

but i also think it ought to go the inverse way; there are people on this server who do not necessarily want to engage in deep narratives.

there are people who are totally content with "two men enter, one man leaves, one man gets bashed!" and that's it. they want to fight. they don't need to RP the death. they don't need the ears. they just want a goofy little Orog Vs Paladin dust-off in the ice roads. that's OK, too.

a million stipulations & edits can be made to the death rules. a million threads can be made about it. the mechanics can even change, but until players actively start trying to figure out how to communicate what they want in any given situation? these behaviors will keep cropping up.

[Eira]

People also need to be willing not to tell others they died.

It's Very Popular right now, when someone asks "oh what happened?" to immediately go "YOU DIED HEHEH" and fill them in.

Be the better roleplayer. Let them have their blurred memory.

Something I like to do is go "oh, best not to think about it, you'll strain something" or "wow you must feel awful, bet your head hurts, let's take a breather"

Focus on the recovery, not the cause.

[Kythana]

Just going to mention that there is an NPC in Cordor that explains in character how the death mechanics work. Specifically going to the Fugue, and being resurrected by your deity of choice, ect. So playing with what we're given, getting 'resurrected' is what is happening.

And it makes death feel cheaper than it already is, and partially why so many do not fear it. There's no consequences whatsoever, and the module is actively fighting against the 'intended vision.'

I personally think it's silly. After playing a more PvP focused character, I think doing away with bashing and trophies would be overall healthier for conflict culture. Have a bashed corpse just vanish, no options to collect an ear.

Have the mechanics reflect the typical response ─ That so and so is alive, but greatly injured.

rules are fine and all; they give a good baseline for "do not do this thing we clearly said not to do."

they will not, however, change how people by-and-large approach death, especially in terms of RP, and that's just by the nature of how death tends to happen in arelith.

I'll also add to this that lately rules feel more like suggestions. I've known reports that have taken weeks if not months for any actionable impact to be taken. By the time they're responded to, the damage has already been done.

It makes reporting feel like an exercise in frustration.

[Anomandaris]

I personally think it's silly. After playing a more PvP focused character, I think doing away with bashing and trophies would be overall healthier for conflict culture. Have a bashed corpse just vanish, no options to collect an ear.

Have the mechanics reflect the typical response ─ That so and so is alive, but greatly injured.

The issue is there are very justifiable reasons why trophies would be collected. This falls into the "this is why we can't have nice things" meme category, where we're doing away with a mechanic because some people cannot be trusted to use it responsibly.

Further, getting rid of "death" entirely in PvP doesn't solve the problem, it just changes it. The people who are doing this behavior presently, will instead start boasting they're "immortal" and "unkillable" or "undefeatable" because they can't "die." It just changes the flavor of the issue.

I'll also add to this that lately rules feel more like suggestions. I've known reports that have taken weeks if not months for any actionable impact to be taken. By the time they're responded to, the damage has already been done.

It makes reporting feel like an exercise in frustration.

This I agree with 1000%. I think part of the issue is the culture of rules enforcement on Arelith. I've observed that PvP violations get a lot of attention very quickly, and often carry strict consequences. It's easy to observe that players/characters doing "PvP'' either too much or the wrong way quickly disappear, or get in line.

On the other hand, players or characters that continue to metagame in any number of ways (e.g. Death Amnesia) appear to be free to continue to do so indefinitely. I can't say exactly why this is. Perhaps its harder to prove, perhaps its viewed as less of a serious infraction and the consequences are lower?

But it has created a culture wherein issues such as metagaming death are par for the course, because people don't seem to be afraid of consequences for doing so. I put forth to the team and community that while getting "no line PvP'd" is certainly frustrating, it's far worse to have your entire character and narrative arch destroyed by someone metagaming a death, disguise, or stream crossing. These behaviors literally end entire character and faction RP and months of time investment. A PvP death, as we are discussing here, (unfortunately) often has very little narrative impact. Given this is a RP server, not an Arena where rewards are given for being at the top of a PvP leaderboard, punishments and rules enforcement should match the impact of the rule infraction on the community. While a player might even be punished, the lasting impact of the metagaming IC is often irreversible.

Having a player character walk up to your disguise tagged PC, do a full spot gear swap and activate consumables (or having their bard friend come by next time because you just can't quite crack it) to break your disguise might very well "end" that character arch as you know it. This is "standard" behavior now. That being said, it should be viewed as a far more egregious (or at least equally egregious) rule break to a PvP violation and receive similar enforcement. The same goes for metagaming death and outing your killer, or any other flavors of this "must-win" behavior.

As a parallel to the real world, if we legislate that "Armed Robbery" is 20 years and "Unarmed Robbery" is 3 years in prison, you're still going to see a lot of Robbery, but less with a weapon. People are (on average) crafty and risk averse, and will adjust their behavior, more or less, based on the perceived consequences or risk/reward. And I think many would agree that it appears that people are pretty comfortable metagaming things these days...

[Kythana]

The issue is there are very justifiable reasons why trophies would be collected. This falls into the "this is why we can't have nice things" meme category, where we're doing away with a mechanic because some people cannot be trusted to use it responsibly.

I don't really think it's a solution to the problem at large, but I don't think that problem can be solved. People are always going to act silly, do ridiculous things and push the edge of the rules. But some if it can be mitigated.

All I can say is that I've seen a lot of unhealthy behavior when it comes to bashing and ears, and I've not seen it promote any meaningful roleplay. Maybe there is some to be found, but it's very rare. I've found that ears are almost always played as in character ego trips for winning pvp.

I find it extremely un-immersive to have someone die, body bashed, ear taken, only for an hour later they're walking around like nothing is wrong. This is generally the mindset I've seen as of late. One group of players is saying something happened, while another is saying something completely opposite to that.

But the mechanics would imply they're both correct. And it leads to awkward scenarios.

Further, getting rid of "death" entirely in PvP doesn't solve the problem, it just changes it. The people who are doing this behavior presently, will instead start boasting they're "immortal" and "unkillable" or "undefeatable" because they can't "die." It just changes the flavor of the issue.

They already do this currently. I've seen many characters who get pvped over and over, die constantly, and treat every one like they never happened.

Regardless of however many times someone is 'killed' right now, it doesn't change the fact that they are alive. Even if their body has been bashed a dozen times, the character hasn't been rolled, so none of those are treated as "deaths."

In both scenarios, they are already being roleplayed like they are immortal. They might not say the words, but their actions imply it.

Unless this behavior is clamped down hard by the DMs, there isn't anything to do about it.

I'd rather have a more immersive flow of pvp that better reflects what is actually happening. It's just a personal want, it of course doesn't solve the issue at large.

[Darkstorn42]

There is something I would like to bring up that a few others have touched, but haven't really evaluated, and that is how the death rules actually weaken the power of death in an RP story.

PC A has been causing a ruckus around town and generally been a thorn in the side of PC B. PC B has struggled to stop them because they have never found them. PC A has had no incentive to stop their behavior because it has been successful. Finally PC B finds PC A and kills them. PC B thinks the situation is over, however, PC A wakes up, doesn't remember what happened and continues doing what they were doing, which was terrorizing PC B.

The lack of remembering means that PC A changing their actions just doesn't make sense. However, if PC B subdued PC A and told them "Next time I will kill you." that has narrative weight. PC B still won the PvP fight, but PC A gets to remember that their actions had consequences.

I fully understand why the rules exist, but I wonder if there is a slightly better middle ground that allows for PvP loss to have weight without it being "Hey, they died." "They look pretty alive to me."

[LivelyParticle]

When/if I "die" with a character in Arelith I take a couple RL days off to let the killers have their "win".

Other than that, I ignore it for the most part. It's not something that can be roleplayed, or that I want to. Repeated memory lapses are boring.

[Zahlfire]

If I die in PvE, alone, then I typically play it off as having narrowly escaped. Dropped my purse but made it back to town. End of story, move on, roleplay my fatigue as being injuries.

If I die in PvE, with others, then I treat it based on how others react. Mild memory loss, ask what happened, how'd I get here, etc.

If I die in PvP, then I treat it far more seriously. Sense of mortality, reflecting on what happened that I know about, showing general weakness and anxiety at having came so close to true death, etc. I also just don't tell people I died. They can pickup the hints about what happened themselves from my roleplay, or from others.

This is just a general guidance for myself. Individual characters might react in different ways.