Mortality and Single Character ~ Discussion

[Anaris]

Tom,

If the code is there already, can you give me and the likes of me a box we can tick to activate it for our characters?

Actually, it's not quite that simple.

The code exists to die of wounds, if mortality is activated. Some more work would be needed to make mortality a per-character preference, not just in the wound-healing section, but everywhere a chance would exist to die.

[Tiridia]

Anaris,

I would be happy of the chance to die of wounds too. It would be a start, wouldn't it? And at the same time it would be a true test and a vote for just how popular people see the mortality feature, if hero is not the choice of class for them for other reasons.

[Eduardo Almighty]

Die for wounds is good for old chars, but not for young ones. I believe no ones want to lose a char before in a stupid battle without achieve something.

[Tom]

Die for wounds is good for old chars, but not for young ones. I believe no ones want to lose a char before in a stupid battle without achieve something.

We have very few hard lines in the game. The current code has a chance dependent on age so that young characters have a very low and middle-age characters a low chance of worse wounds and lower yet to die of them, but it is never zero.

[Geronus]

We have very few hard lines in the game. The current code has a chance dependent on age so that young characters have a very low and middle-age characters a low chance of worse wounds and lower yet to die of them, but it is never zero.

Regardless, I think there should be one for mortality. Every character should have a decently long window in which death is simply not a possibility in order to grow and develop relationships and personality (not to mention accumulate some power and/or accomplishments). We don't want someone's very first character to die after three months of playing in a stroke of freak bad luck, that's just not good for the game.

I would advocate for keeping mortality voluntary (as reflected by the existing hero class option) for all characters under 40 years of age. Thereafter it should be possible for any character to die as you've outlined above, with an ever-increasing chance as the character ages.

I strongly suggest that age-based (as opposed to purely combat-based) mortality be considered as well, to mitigate the problem you already pointed out of the King who simply sits in his palace and never makes an appearance on the battlefield. Clearly the reduced hours aren't a sufficient incentive for people to delete powerful or cherished characters since we have a number of 90+ year old characters running about on the stable islands. At some point, characters that old should simply die. Perhaps there's a small chance that they become ill (resulting in a wound) on any given day after a certain age. Thereafter the wound code that you've already devised would determine whether they get better or not, with the chance of recovery becoming less and less with age.

[Tom]

I've always been against illness and other random events resulting in character death.

But if there were mortality for old characters, those infiltrator attacks on the 90+ old ruler of Foreverstan would become a powerful threat again...

[Indirik]

But if there were mortality for old characters, those infiltrator attacks on the 90+ old ruler of Foreverstan would become a powerful threat again...

YES! I agree with Geronus' statement of younger characters retaining their immortality. Yet once you pass a certain age (40 may be too young, maybe 60?), you *should* have a chance of dying from complications of wounds. If you don't want them to die of random causes, then let wounds that get bad enough actually result in death. You don't even have to enable mortality from the initial stab. Make it so that it only happens when they get wounded, and then the wounded keeps getting worse. A really nasty stabbing will put them close, but they would still need to get unlucky on the dice rolls to actually die.

Hmm... this would open up mortality to those really old characters that retreat into the priesthood to escape death, too.

And it would provide some incentive for people to drop lots of gold into infil training again.

[Revan]

YES! I agree with Geronus' statement of younger characters retaining their immortality. Yet once you pass a certain age (40 may be too young, maybe 60?), you *should* have a chance of dying from complications of wounds. If you don't want them to die of random causes, then let wounds that get bad enough actually result in death. You don't even have to enable mortality from the initial stab. Make it so that it only happens when they get wounded, and then the wounded keeps getting worse. A really nasty stabbing will put them close, but they would still need to get unlucky on the dice rolls to actually die.

Hmm... this would open up mortality to those really old characters that retreat into the priesthood to escape death, too.

And it would provide some incentive for people to drop lots of gold into infil training again.

I feel like this could be mortality done right.

[Geronus]

YES! I agree with Geronus' statement of younger characters retaining their immortality. Yet once you pass a certain age (40 may be too young, maybe 60?), you *should* have a chance of dying from complications of wounds. If you don't want them to die of random causes, then let wounds that get bad enough actually result in death. You don't even have to enable mortality from the initial stab. Make it so that it only happens when they get wounded, and then the wounded keeps getting worse. A really nasty stabbing will put them close, but they would still need to get unlucky on the dice rolls to actually die.

Hmm... this would open up mortality to those really old characters that retreat into the priesthood to escape death, too.

And it would provide some incentive for people to drop lots of gold into infil training again.

It will need some thoughtful tuning vis a vis infiltrators. We don't want to turn 60+ year old characters into fish in a barrel (though at the high end of the age range, it should start to get pretty hard to escape death). Some islands, especially the stable ones, have a large supply of very highly trained infiltrators; if the mortality formula is too aggressive, a lot of people will start getting stabbed to death.

[Chenier]

You accepted their death the moment you clicked that "hero" button. That is a HUGE difference.

People will accept character mortality if it is the norm from the go, when they know he can die when they create a character. That is why global mortality will work in M&F, because it's there from the start.

Introducing it into BM is a lot more difficult. I'm not entirely averse to the idea, or else we wouldn't have tried it on BT once, but you can't just flip a switch and tell people "tough luck". It has to be a lot more gradual then that.

Years ago, when we reworked wounding, code was added to make the duration of serious wounds less predictable. That code already uses age - older characters will heal slower. It also has code where wounds get worse instead of better, and again older characters have a higher chance of that triggering. It ALSO already has code where your wounds become so bad, you die. That code is not active, but it's there already.

Acceptance is the main reason we never activated it.

There was quite a gap between the moment I clicked on "become a hero" and the moment that my hero actually died. And despite there being a few moments in his career I would have been glad to see him die in, I was never happy about his death and never really came to "accept" it.

Having death known from the go would make it easier for people to accept, but doesn't mean they'll LIKE it either.

[Tiridia]

One perhaps a little silly approach to mortality would be to have a stat called "health". It would be something that started out at 100 and various incidents during the harsh life of a noble would gradually drop it until at 0 your character would die. Age would factor into it but would not automatically drop it. It could be a soft thing in a way that getting wounded _might_ drop it one point at an earlier age, but later with an increased chance. Perhaps even so (unrealistically) that multiple stabs soon one after one would have a lowered chance to drop it.

So you would know where you character is at any given stage. You would know when it was "soon his time", so you could plan your RP:s around it and build his story to a closure. Again, not realistic, but storywise better. In this approach age would be a numeric representation of, well, your character's age, while health would be what you lose when you are tortured and wounded, which at the end effects the hours at your disposal.

This would turn infiltrator attacks from a nuisance to something serious, but yet not overpowered. Each stab would be a meaningful step towards the death of the target character.

100 health would be a nice round number, but it could be any other number too. 100 would be quite sufficient for creating a good storyline.

[Chenier]

One perhaps a little silly approach to mortality would be to have a stat called "health". It would be something that started out at 100 and various incidents during the harsh life of a noble would gradually drop it until at 0 your character would die. Age would factor into it but would not automatically drop it. It could be a soft thing in a way that getting wounded _might_ drop it one point at an earlier age, but later with an increased chance. Perhaps even so (unrealistically) that multiple stabs soon one after one would have a lowered chance to drop it.

So you would know where you character is at any given stage. You would know when it was "soon his time", so you could plan your RP:s around it and build his story to a closure. Again, not realistic, but storywise better. In this approach age would be a numeric representation of, well, your character's age, while health would be what you lose when you are tortured and wounded, which at the end effects the hours at your disposal.

This would turn infiltrator attacks from a nuisance to something serious, but yet not overpowered. Each stab would be a meaningful step towards the death of the target character.

100 health would be a nice round number, but it could be any other number too. 100 would be quite sufficient for creating a good storyline.

I like this idea gameplay-wise (as far as mortality goes, which I don't like from the go), but it does feel way too gamey.

[Geronus]

One perhaps a little silly approach to mortality would be to have a stat called "health". It would be something that started out at 100 and various incidents during the harsh life of a noble would gradually drop it until at 0 your character would die. Age would factor into it but would not automatically drop it. It could be a soft thing in a way that getting wounded _might_ drop it one point at an earlier age, but later with an increased chance. Perhaps even so (unrealistically) that multiple stabs soon one after one would have a lowered chance to drop it.

So you would know where you character is at any given stage. You would know when it was "soon his time", so you could plan your RP:s around it and build his story to a closure. Again, not realistic, but storywise better. In this approach age would be a numeric representation of, well, your character's age, while health would be what you lose when you are tortured and wounded, which at the end effects the hours at your disposal.

This would turn infiltrator attacks from a nuisance to something serious, but yet not overpowered. Each stab would be a meaningful step towards the death of the target character.

100 health would be a nice round number, but it could be any other number too. 100 would be quite sufficient for creating a good storyline.

Interesting approach. I like the idea of seeing it coming ahead of time.

[Tiridia]

I like this idea gameplay-wise (as far as mortality goes, which I don't like from the go), but it does feel way too gamey.

It's balancing between realism and gameplay. A sudden death, whilst more realistic, does not let a player bring the character to a closure and wrap things up. I am just pointing out that a sudden death without a warning is not the only option we have to near-immortality.

It has to do with what the actions of our characters matter. You do not now really risk your life and limb when entering combat. Nor do infiltrators accomplish anything on a more permanent basis. The gradual creeping of death would serve its place if it increases the thrill you feel for the actions you do with your character. Just imagine tournaments, where you might actually get hurt and lose something, but with a much lesser chance for it for the youngsters. They would feel different. Risking life and limb, as they really did back then.

Not to mention making ordinary duels count for something.

It's nothing harsh or sudden. Nothing that the players would not anticipate. It would still take quite awhile for an ordinary noble to run through his hundred hurts.

The math of it could be that the age of your character would be the percentage of the chance of losing one point when wounded. Or something similar.

[Tom]

One perhaps a little silly approach to mortality would be to have a stat called "health".

We have that, it's called "age". The age attribute in BM does not represent calendar age, it represents physical age and you DO "age" when you get wounded.

Still, I do like the idea, and we could convert between the two.