Is death needed?

Community Larp discussion
#1

There has been a lot of talk about various ways of whacking people and I’m wondering what people think about death in larping. What best describes your feeling on death on larp?

  • Life is cheap, let the bodies fall where they may!
  • Death should only happen if you screw up really badly.
  • Death should be very rare, I spend a lot of time developing a character and I’m emotionally attached to it.
  • Characters who are developed should be able to be ressurected with a bit of effort.
  • When you die, you should count to 100 and get up again.
  • What’s all this death talk? Lets not have death at all, lets play games where we all love each other. Peace.

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I don’t care either way.

#2

It depends on the style of game, for me, so I am unable to cast a vote. I think in some settings resurrection should be possible. In Mordavia the death frequency and inability to resurrect people was fine and worked to the system’s advantage.

Nightmare Circle, however unintentionally, does occasionally let characters come back from the dead-- the cost, however, is usually quite high and a major shift in the way the character must be played, but these twists are usually exquisite and fun to play. My own character survived an experience where he did, in fact, actually die, until it was ruled afterwards that a monumental cosmic error allowed him to survive. The price was that he was horrendously shaken by the experience and developed a second, exceedingly separate and different personality, which is now a major part of the character that requires just as much attention as the original. Likewise, Dr. Dalhurst was blown to bits in a grenade blast; his brain, however, was put into the body of a ghoul and he has become a recurring villain.

#3

That’s a really tough poll, because i suspect its a game to game decision. If there is NO death then it’s like playing Doom (FPS) on God-mode. Fun for a while and then deadly dull. In live combat as opposed to computer generated there’s the whole getting hit thing to kickstart the adrenaline some, but it’s always going to mean more if you could lose everything.

There should be a penalty for doing stupid things like attacking when outnumbered 5 - 1, or opening that door with the “DO NOT OPEN, SERIOUSLY, WE MEAN IT” sign on it.

If there’s NO chance of anything permanent happening people will just take dumb risks because hey, what’s the worst that could happen?

From a realism, immersion perspective, I think death should always be a possibility… Hmmm… ok, so I guess I believe you should die if you really screw up… Alright, I’ll go vote now. lol
:wink:
Kara

#4

I want to vote twice, death should be a conseqeunce of stupidity, but it should be rare.

As kara said less like a FPS computer game and more like life, where you cling to life with grim determination.

but i really do think Darwin should be given his due as well.

#5

[quote=“theotherphoenix”]That’s a really tough poll, because i suspect its a game to game decision. If there is NO death then it’s like playing Doom (FPS) on God-mode. Fun for a while and then deadly dull. In live combat as opposed to computer generated there’s the whole getting hit thing to kickstart the adrenaline some, but it’s always going to mean more if you could lose everything.

There should be a penalty for doing stupid things like attacking when outnumbered 5 - 1, or opening that door with the “DO NOT OPEN, SERIOUSLY, WE MEAN IT” sign on it.

If there’s NO chance of anything permanent happening people will just take dumb risks because hey, what’s the worst that could happen?

From a realism, immersion perspective, I think death should always be a possibility… Hmmm… ok, so I guess I believe you should die if you really screw up… Alright, I’ll go vote now. lol
:wink:
Kara[/quote]

Ditto.
Nice to see you’ve crossed over to Diatribe Kara. :slight_smile:

#6

It was getting lonely over on Mordavia :wink:

Kara

#7

[quote=“theotherphoenix”]It was getting lonely over on Mordavia :wink:

Kara[/quote]

Where?

Oh Mordavia…that is so last month honey, where have you been living under a rock for the last three weeks.

#8

Death should be part of gaming.

If you want to play a game without concequences, there are a number of fine computer games on the market for people to excercise this.
While I see that people are attached to their characters, it is after all a game… Right? When you risk your character, you might lose!!! (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I can’t lose!!!)
I get really freaked out when I hear about people being ‘emotionally attached’ to their characters.
'Oh my god! What do you mean they could DIE?'
I realise people put a lot of time and effort into their characters, but they’re not real…right? It’s just a character. If this one dies, you can make another.

Character death introduces a threat, otherwise we get to wander round doing what we will, with no thought of concequences because nothing really bad can happen to me. Without death to a character, we just add to the weird fantasy-reality blur.

If you get into a fight and you get beaten… That’s it!!!

Squish!

#9

I’m with the cop-out “depends on the game” crowd on this one. In Nibelungen death is pretty rare but I expect people to fear death every damn second of the game. It’s also possible to lose stuff rather than die - eg. the ship can be beat up bad in a dog-fight and lose hours worth of work, damage weapons/navigational/entertainment systems etc. I’ll reveal more after playing.

#10

Death is not a bad thing, imagine all the great roleplaying you get out of killing another character, or mourning another character or trying to resusitate dying charcter. death is good (but only with good roleplayers).

Hansi

#11

Death is part of Live Role Play, but is should should not carry such high penalties that players will not die when they run out of hit points. Permanent death of a character is a big thing in the LRP and RPG community.

Adventuring characters are meant to have a healthy respect for death, but as it is a constant part of their life, it should not disable their brains and stop them functioning.

Recently I had to help someone who was stabbed by one of my neighbours. So their is a person running around my place stabbing people, you don’t scream and cry, you call the police, you shepperd the victim to safety, you put up a stand guard and you make sure you know where your escape routes are. Another real fight I got into, the other person had a weapon. Again panic just kills you. You get the shakes after the situation is resolved. They started it, I was unarmed, they lost.

In Karate we say “Train as you fight, fight as you train.” Fear has no place in combat.

#12

But does LARP death does not only happen in combat, what about sickness, suicide, accidents, poison even old age?? and not all larps are about heros. I would say that fear of life is and should be a big thing in LARP. If you dont fear for your own life, you may fear for someone elses.

#13

In the sort of periods that we normally associate LRP, the average life span was 35 years for a male, 25 years for a female. Life was hard, brutal and short. The average person did not travel more than 8km from where they were born. The average life span of a samurai was 16years from birth to death. Most people were property that could be bought and sold with the land that they lived on. The average person had a much more fatalistic out look on life. What will be, will be. If I die that be the will of the gods. In our nice long lived society we have a much more interesting and complex view of death that we try and impose on the old stories and legends that LRP is based on.

If I die in combat it is my fault.
If I die of disease, that is my gods will.

Death should be ina LRP. Permanent death belongs only to Cthulhu campaigns.

#14

I like death. It adds meaning and consequence to larp. When my character was executed, and his King arrested, in Mordavia: The Hollow Kingdom, it started a plot arc that had major implications for the game.

Apart from not being able to play that character again, what other penalties are there ? As long as you can start a new character, what’s the issue with characters dying ?

Under the new Skirmish rules, characters persist from game to game, so players have an investment in their character and therefore don’t want to die. But we still have spells like Finger of Death which kills instantly. The character is dead, but if there is a sufficiently high level Cleric on hand, or the party can carry the character back to the Keep, then that character can be Raised. But if that character is left behind, or gets raised as an undead (by a Lich, for example), then death becomes permanent.

So, we’ve kind of got it both ways. Still, permanent death happens a lot, which is good.

#15

Personally I find that events with no permanent death lose a lot of emotional resonance. They lack in drama, and for me drama is an important aspect of events. I could play in a larp where the PCs were immured to death, but I don’t see why that means death should be less frequent.

Even if you believe that in the old days life was cheap, how does that translate into having no permanent death in larps inspired by that period? Surely if life was cheap in the setting you’re inspired by, then death should be frequent and not necessarily fair and resurrection un-heard of in the event you run. Best way of reflecting the cheapness of life.

Players being attached to their characters is a question of local play culture. In the UK permanent death is the norm and most players are used to it and hate the idea of resurrection. In the USA characters typically get resurrected and never die, and the players there are used to that and hate the idea of permanent death. Local play culture is changeable, and a poor reason for design decisions.

#16

[quote=“Alista”]In the sort of periods that we normally associate LRP, the average life span was 35 years for a male, 25 years for a female. Life was hard, brutal and short. The average person did not travel more than 8km from where they were born. The average life span of a samurai was 16years from birth to death. Most people were property that could be bought and sold with the land that they lived on. The average person had a much more fatalistic out look on life. What will be, will be. If I die that be the will of the gods. In our nice long lived society we have a much more interesting and complex view of death that we try and impose on the old stories and legends that LRP is based on.

If I die in combat it is my fault.
If I die of disease, that is my gods will.

Death should be ina LRP. Permanent death belongs only to Cthulhu campaigns.[/quote]

I dont know if i agree with the historic oppinion you have given. And if it was true, that does not mean that you dont care if you die or not. If you die you will leave a burden on you family/comunity, for several reasons. If your chacter dies in the generic group of traveling adventurers, the group has lost a member and becomes weaker. Of course you will not have a blasey relationship to that. And we are still the same now as we where 3000 years ago, if a family member or a loved one dies, life does not stop, we move on and accept that something bad has happened.

Death in LARP can be a fantastic thing, like Mike said, it can change the course of an entire game. It can throw players and their characters deep into the imersion of the game where feelings suddenly are not just acted, but real, even if you are playing ‘Grumar the steelhearted inpenitrable knignt’ or if you playing snoino the onionfarmer thats never left his house. If the character that you have played for 29 years dies, its not a bad thing, because you have left the game and you co players with something to roleplay with.

Hansi

#17

You don’t need a permanent death to get players involved. Our system is based on 1st ed AD&D and Paladium so death while inconvenient, painful and expensive is not usually permanent.

In this system I have seen players so panicked and scared they do not know what to do. I have seem parties pertrified into inaction by the attack of a monster. Then the party just stays where it is hoping that nothing attacks them again. I have seen parties so anguished over an encounter that the players scream and shout and literally are pulling their hair out. I have seen clerics pondering with anguish deep moral dialemas presented to them. I have seen a party of ten brave adventurers run away from a single gobo in fear. Or a party totally undecided what to do about the army in front of them. I have seen players try to bribe an illusion for half an hour before realising it was an illusion, the expression on their face when they figured it out was priceless.

I am not sure how permanently killing a character will make these emotions or this immersion in Live Role Role Play more real or more intense.

Death is just the beginning of the journey.

#18

Permanent death makes it interesting. But only if it’s not too easy to die - otherwise players would get bored as the whole playing would come to only fighting for their lives.
Very nice to have stuff that helps surviving - healing, warding brews, armour points, etc. You need to find a way to survive - and you can choose whatever suits you best.
On that Mordavia which was before the End game I got a tentacle strike and fall on the ground in a middle of big messy fight at night, then I got carried away (thanks to Kerensky :unamused: ). I heard other players’ reaction: they thought someone got killed and the dead body was being carried away. That was so dramatic :unamused: 8)
“Death is a natural thing. Miss them do not. Mourn them do not. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to loose”.
Death is appropriate in larp because without it the stuff would look slightly unnatural 8) Though I admit that in a particula larp with particular rules that could be done, but I don’t think there are many of those around, and I can’t really imagine something now.

#19

I play Nightmare Circle which is set in the Cthulhu mythos. As FauxCyclops said somewhere else on Diatribe, the GMs are much more likely to save your character at some horrific cost than kill you.

In fact, it’s the only larp I’ve played in where I’ve seen a character come back from the dead.

#20

Nightmare Circle is different though. When your character comes back to life, you wish you were still dead…