Fight/Death system suggestion

[Leviathan]

It came to my attention a few days ago that the rules for death on this site are basically. If the other person doesn’t give you permission. No matter what the situation is, they won’t die. You have to let them live. Now as Nightmare is aware I’ve always seen this rule as impractical. And non sensical when applied to rping. Now the rule may be to spare peoples feelings but in a site were death is little more than a delay of posting till you can revive. Or not even that considering that your char can become a ghost/ Poe. It makes very little sense to have it.

One of the golden rules of rp is that OOC must not interact with IC. And whilst sometimes its difficult to split the two we must always try our hardest to strive to that. In short I believe that the rule as stands, represents a counter to this rule, in cases were there is a deathmatch going on. There is more than likely going to be real IC reason for one character wanting the other one dead. And if in this situation, one character put themselves in a situation were death was the only out come. Why would they survive? Because we want to spare the feelings of their player? Because their player doesn’t want this? To our characters, the other player doesn’t exist, their feelings, do not influence the feelings of our characters. So why in such a situation would we spare them? The simple answer is friends, they would not.

By going against this, we infringe upon the borders of OOC to IC interaction.

So here’s my suggestion.

New Suggested Fighting/death rules
- By entering a fight with the possibility of death, your permission for death is automatically implied.
-If you do not wish your character to die, do not place them in a situation were death is a possibility
- If a fight has started and death looks likely. Run away, make a tactical retreat. Whatever sounds best. Bitching about death after the point will not fly.
- There must be an IC reason for one character to kill another. If OOC reasons are suspected, the fight will be declared null.
- Simply stopping posting in a thread if your character is on the verge of death will equally not fly. If you suspect a person of doing this ie) they’ve been posting consistently elsewhere on the site for about a weeks time. Report it to an admin/mod who if they suspect this is the case. Will warn the person in question. If they still do not post after a period of 3 days and the aforementioned trend continues. Then they have the power to declare the person’s turn forfeit. Allowing your death strike through.
- Goes without saying, no god modding or powergaming autohits through. For your attack to hit, your opponent( or a mod) MUST confirm the attack his

How and When to Judge Death
This one is what I call the common sense rule. Death is judged when common sense dictates that death is the only outcome of an attack.(ex) You try to powerslide under a werewolf with a giant sword . Due to the rough ground and giant sword, you are slowed down to the point were the werewolf easily jumps on top of you before you have the chance to go under. Leaving you massively exposed for a nice big chomp out of your neck.

Or in the more conventional sense. Decapitation (etc) < unless of course you have a tech which allows you to survive decapitation. There is of course also the death point. The point where a sufficient number of lighter injuries would cause enough accumulated damage to render an opponent well..dead. If you believe that your opponent has reached this point. Then contact an admin who will look over the case taking into account the persons species, abilities, and equipment. ( Abilities might extend thi9s point ex, superhuman endurance) if they determine the character had reached the point where they are dying. Then they might be given a turn count to have their wounds healed or else death will come automatically. If the wounds however are sufficient and numerous enough, an opponent might simply be declared dead on the spot.


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Again, this is simply a suggestion as I believe the system as is. Is broken in respects to IC OOC interaction over death.

[GODRIC LYNCH]

SUPPORT X 100000000

[Nairore]

I can support this for the most part. The right ideas are expressed, since the site has a system for handling death by turning a player into a Poe. And once the character is a Poe, death is entirely optional for them. If you die as a Poe you're either doing it wrong or you intended to die permanently. In terms of certain character plots here and there it might even be wise to skip over the Poe phase altogether. If someone is getting sick of a character and sacrifice it, for example, then they don't want to have to find a way to kill it again to free up the account.

However to invoke this sort of ruling there are things that need to be changed around the site, too, which could be tedious at best. Right now the conversion into a Poe is sort of a neat mechanic that can be pursued if you want to. It's by no means as easy as it needs to be if character deaths are to become more common. Dropping racials and all that could break a character, then there's a matter of updating the character sheet with new racials meaning getting updates approved only to have them reverted in the future when one revives themselves, meaning another update approval. Between all that, regular character updates and new characters stockpiling fast, I don't think Nightmare would want that much paperwork.

Furthermore if death is to become a real possibility I think that each and every dragon, and some other monster characters, may need to be revisited. No player character should be able to take on a dozen others just because they chose the race preferred by the admin, not without taking a lot of penalties in, say, single combat. Right now I'm pretty sure if the dragons wanted to they could just about wipe out the site, and that's with a vanilla characters, without any upgrades. Monsters need to be toned down a little to give other people a fighting chance, particularly when most of them are quite whimsical at best and in character reasons to raze a village are never hard to come by.

While yes, I think creating a very real threat in death is a good thing, frankly I don't want to have the risk of walking down the road and being shot in the head or chomped on by a dragon. You say in character reasons are necessary, but they're not that hard to concoct. Nairore right now in my thread with Merik could feasibly decide she likes being a Hylian and slit his throat in his sleep. At this point I'd say it'd be reasonable to say she could get away with it, too. Or vice versa. Someone could easily say Risa broke his friend's heart or robbed him, a friend which is entirely created as an excuse, and who am I to argue, considering that's every bit in her character?

You have a good idea, but to get it to a point where everyone's happy with it, not just the few of you who feel far too superior, would take some work. Not everyone's as clever and conniving as you folk and it could easily rob their experience.

[/size][/justify]

[Leviathan]

First of all glad to be getting some good feedback from the idea.

Next on to the points.

For the difficulties concerning Poe conversion. I'd suggest that people first state whether or not they intend to remain a Poe. If they do not intend this, then rather than change their race on their bio merely grant them current Poe " status". Thus resolving issues of going back and forth. To keep track of who is dead and who is alive simply have them state when they died and when they revived in the updates.

Next onto the point of dragons monsters. This is a very good point. I've always believed that for any exceptional strength you have to have an equally exceptional weakness. In the case of myself. The majority of Leviathan's powers reside in his true form and are inaccessable in human form. And human form is more or less the only way to move about on land, as he is extremely crippled on land for movement. ( and the fact he'll die if his body isn't moist). Other dragons I know, share this thing about most powers being locked in human form. Not sure if they share the same crippling weakness for land/water.

I agree, that those bios who do not have this significant weakness do need to be relooked at and have one added.

Other points on this however, I must reiterate. If a person does not wish to die. They should not put themselves in a situation where death is a possibility. If a dragon is about to chomp you, run for christs sake if you don't think you can fight back and win. Next point, again I'll state that if OOC influence is suspected on a persons reasons to kill a person. Then any conflict would be declared null. And to me, a person coming up with no prior indication of murder, is quite odd. And a case for suspect.

Take note though that in the nymph situation. Monsters like the Nymph char, or indeed any monster. While more likely to kill people are also more likely to be attacked for the simple reason that they are monsters.

Again, I'm glad to be having feedback. And hopefully if the suggestion is taken to, even if modifications are required. I'm sure we can flesh out some improvements.

[Nairore]

Don't have much time to debate further points, but I just wanted to address your weakness point. While yours is somewhat reasonable, your very existence also limits RP in an entire board to your will. No one can RP in Oceania Hyrule without your permission, essentially, because in water you have all your powers and can essentially kill anyone you don't like. Which, if I understand your character, is anyone on the water.

Rwaht always liked to make a point about weaknesses like this. People create a nuke spell and then say it's only usable once every two threads or something. The cooldown doesn't really matter, because in the end this person has a nuke spell. Cooldown isn't so much a weakness as a method of controlling abilities that are already reasonably powered. Same goes for land or sea. While yes, you're very limited, it doesn't change the fact that you are also a one hit kill, something no character should have if this rule is passed. Furthermore you have the other dragons, which are more conventional. Their powers may be locked when in human form, but then one turn later you have the equivalent of nukes running around.

That's the main problem with a policy change like this. If it were invoked, we would have an Inquisition on hand for every character to make sure they didn't have any one hit kills floating around.

EDIT: I'd also like to state that I am for the idea of creating a threat of death, I just want to make sure it's done wisely.

[/size][/justify]

[Niro Lynch]

I support.

[Leviathan]

Whilst the above is partially true.

Again it presents the same idea about any character really. The only difference between Leviathan and say, a Zora character. is the size. If a Zora character decided to make one with the same magic slots as myself, and went around attacking people on the water, well you'd be faced with the same situation no matter what the species is.

Again, with the normal dragons its more or less the same. Just different size.

In fact if anything a Zora would actually arguably be worse *strokes chin* since its not limited to one form. *plots*

Anyways I agree this needs to be handled wisely before any changes are made. And would really like to see Nightmare's opinion on what to be done.

[Innes Lynch]

I agree with Nairore. I support the decision to have Death a possibility, but I think in fights only. If you enter into a thread that is based on fighting, or both people agree to a fight during the progress of the thread, then it is a possibility, otherwise it should be handled with careful ruling.

The reason is because me (Shavir/Woof! btw), and Godric up there, used to be on a site where death was a possibility ALL the time, in every thread. Did we abuse this? Dear God yes, we abused the living shit out of it. On the flipside, we were always at risk, so it left to being a paranoid roleplayer, which is no fun.

Plus, if your going into a battle thread with death enabled, then just drop some rupees and have a revive ready. It also makes characters who have escaping abilities much more useful.

[Nightmare Darklight]

Honestly, if this goes through, I'll just reduce the crap out of revival costs. (we're talking like, from 50 to 20 as a ballpark figure, might even go lower than that. Dying would be a very minor slap on the wrist at the absolute worst.)

You could literally die, get the rupees for finishing the thread, then just revive yourself with that. The consequences for dying would be negligible. None of you would get the PM cussing you out for months of hard work down the drain that I am sure some of you are hoping for.

Oh, and fairies would probably be able to fix it, or something. Resurrection's gotta come in handy somewhere, I guess.

Anyway, not taking an official side, just going to see what happens.

Also, I object to the dragons being my fault, it's clearly Skyrim's fault. And if you want to talk about dragons being a problem, please make another suggestion thread for that.

[Leviathan]

On Nights points. Good idea. But on the point of not taking an offical stance.

Whilst most situations require Admin neutrality and a touch and go process, system changes and suggestions are not one of those. If you are reserving judgement till you get a larger member approval. I would advise that you either give a registered number of people required to agree before its passed.

Or hold it on a pending " pass", having a situation in which " Speak now or forever hold your peace" comes into play.

Otherwise leaving as is. Those who support it have already expressed their opinion. And will probably not have much else to say.But elaving as is will just cause the topic to be shelfed.

[Nightmare Darklight]

Well, I've given it time. Support seems to be unanimous, and like I said, if it passes, I'll just reduce the revivals a crapton. (20 was a ballpark figure, remember. I'm genuinely considering 5 - 10)

If anyone has an objection to this, might want to post it now. I'll give it two days.

[Ryan Green]

I remember once there was another proposal for a major system overhaul on the last Zelda site I was on. I remember making a prediction that it would wreak the site for everyone, possibly kill it. Guess what? I was right. Everything happened exactly as I said it would happen. The changes happened, no one liked them, and the site crashed and burned.

So, I'm going to use my Mystical Powers of Prophecy to make a few more predictions:

First Prediction
The change to the system will pass, however new current and/or members will abuse the everloving crap out of it, causing problems for everyone and a needless amount of drama. Thus forcing us to go back to the old system to avoid a total meltdown.

Second Prediction
The change to the system will pass, however as Night said, the reduction in the revival price will make it just negate it entirely, making it so that there is no tangible difference between the new system and the old.

In the end, it doesn't really matter what happens, as there will be no real impact to the site in the long run. Besides, what are you going to do for people who just like to stick with one character, like myself, or Mav, or Night? Granted the odds if you killing any of us are fairly low, but the point has to be made for other people who just like making one character.

Third Prediction
On the other hand, since people don't like seeing their hand-crafted characters killed, and have a tendency to see themselves as the main character, this will cause a skyrocket in human characters with a maxed out Mighty Wind, effectively giving me (Ryan Green, Human Champion) an undying army. So, go nuts!

[Leviathan]

Prediction 1: Let them speak now. Or forever hold their peace
Prediction 2: Directly contradicts prediction 1.
Prediction 3: I think I'll speak for all monsters here when I say I look forward to your mighty army of tasty Monty Python black knights. And then for all humans when I say, more humans = more competition for the title of champion.And with a successful death system implimented. Losing said title becomes all the easier.

[Ryan Green]

Do note that I didn't say anything about ALL the predictions happening, just that they were predictions.

Overall, I'm against this, while my character has a justification to murder a good chunk of the site, and I would find it amusing to do so, there really is no point to this adjustment at all if Night is just going to reduce the revive cost. That, and no one has followed up on my point of what happens to people who only like to make one character. If they die, then what happens? Do they leave the site, unable to play anymore? Seems like a good way to lose membership. Plus like I said, people like to see themselves as the main character and aren't about to put their characters that they've put work in to at risk, regardless of how easy it is to revive them. So really what you'er asking for is a pointless overhaul to the system that will discourage new membership. A bad move if there ever was one.

[Leviathan]

It would seem Ryan that you have not read the thread, just skimmed it.

To answer your points.

1, The justification behind it is fixnig the IC/OOC problem behind letting people live who your character wants to kill. As things stand they would need to let them live if the other person wants to keep them alive. This breaks character.

2, People would not leave. As stated upon death people can become Poes and make an easy few posts to earn the Rupees to revive themselves.

3, Its not about how little it costs, but rather about fixing a problem. Even if the cost is so little it makes no difference in the long run. It means you would not have to break character whilst fighting an opponent in a death match to let them live.