1. Inquiry. “Hey, I know we’ve been talking about MUDs and permadeath for 25 years, but I bet no one’s thought of this angle!!”

2. Despair. “Please, Not the Permadeath Debate Again”, “Permadeath debates always drive me crazy”, “So I was going to stay the hell out of the permadeath discussion Damion started for no apparent reason other than, perhaps, that we were boring him.” ” I’m rather tired of recurring topics that do not go anywhere”. Funny, everyone hates the debate, but no one can resist jumping into it.
3. Captain Obvious Speaks. “People don’t like to lose their stuff.” “It isn’t fun.” “It’s hardcore, and only hardcore games will ever use it.” “Any game which depends on the internet for its reliability has no place permanently taking away all your stuff.” “Why in God’s name would anyone consider this idea a good or compelling idea?”

4. The Spirited, Myopic Defense. “It helps clear out all of the high level characters!” (and that’s a goal, why?) “It makes high level characters that much cooler when you see them!” (Aren’t there other was we can do this without making the incompetent players want to quit?) “It can make some really cool risk vs reward scenarios if used sparingly!” (Aren’t there alternate jacked-up risk vs reward scenarios that could be just as effective without making a no tolerance failure case?)

5. Dragonrealms. “I played Dragonrealms/Gemstone/Random Text MUD years ago and they had permadeath and it was great! Basically, preventing permadeath was a chore you had to do and the only way you could actually permadie is if you’re incredibly lazy and incompetent!” Interestingly, the systems that have been tried and work all seem to avoid all three of the ‘really cool things’ cited in The Spirited, Myopic Defense. Also, making all of the lazy, incompetent people in your player base want to quit is bad for business.

6. Ancestry. “What would be cool is if when you died, your next character was the first character’s son, and it would have some of the stats, but could have a different name and appearance and people would send tells to your last name and if you permadie before you have a kid your lineage dies out…”

7. Non-Permadeath Permadeath Solutions. “What if we had permadeath, but it only happened after 100 deaths, and you kept all your stats and stuff, and maybe your appearance, but maybe your name would change (but only if you wanted to)…”

8. Moving On. Tired and weary from this debate, people move on to a less inflammatory topic, like abortion.

Probably the most insightful thing said in the whole thing is, as Lum points out, Jeff Freeman’s assertion that the first step to permadeath is to get rid of the tired notion that a player is an avatar. Lum then goes on to say that a lot of great ideas start with getting rid of that tired notion. It’s an interesting read, although I’ve got critiques I might throw out later if I have more time.

Still, I think the other compelling thing that Jeff has to say is, after giving a couple of examples of how it could work, the following:

But personally, I still wouldn’t implement permadeath even in that sort of game. Not without some other, very compelling reason to do so.

Come to think of it, that’s true for a lot of ideas. But yes, I do believe Permadeath is doable — but it’d have to be the center of your game experience, and you’d have to go to a lot of work to change the perception that the character is the center of the gameplay experience.

  Original thread comments were here.