Gaming for purists
28 Dec 2004 
in the early evening 
Matt Winckler
Geoff and I had an interesting discussion last night pertaining to various aspects of MMORPG design, specifically economy and death. We seemed to generally agree that conservation of money (analagous to conservation of matter) was a good thing, and would not be terribly difficult to implement. Then we moved to the topic of death in games, and how it should be implemented. At that point, we disagree somewhat fundamentally.
I have not truly come to a formal conclusion in my views on death in games, but I tend to favor some form of “permanent death” (or permadeath)–that is, when you die, it’s over. No resurrection; start from scratch with a new character. This, as I see it, has several advantages as well as disadvantages. Advantages to me are that players will be much more attached to characters they have successfully built up over time, and that the roleplaying aspect will benefit because the character is no longer simply a pile of statistics but rather a story. A high-level character in a world without permanent death is simply a sign of a lot of time spent working on that character. A high-level character living under the shadow of permadeath is a sign of time spent, yes, but also skill, caution, and daring. Suddenly the battles that had to be fought to get to this level are much more important and vivid than before, since during many of those battles the character might have been snuffed out permanently. Without permadeath, during many of those battles the character probably was snuffed out, lost X amount of experience points, came back to whack away at the villain again, and rinsed/repeated as many times as necessary to kill the bad guy. (And this turn of events is not necessarily the player’s fault as much as the design of the game world.)
Geoff, perhaps rightly, argues that gamers at large do not like permadeath and the loss it represents when a character dies. Thus, he says, the idea is not a good one because (among other reasons) it is not as financially profitable as the current mainstream systems, if it is viable at all. This morning I looked up one of the threads I’d been reading a few weeks ago and found a quote that I sought, from a fellow calling himself Kaos:
Mainstream popularity equates to mediocrity; innovative ideas have to be sparse and/or weak enough to avoid offending those who dislike them. That means they’ll only hint at great potential to those who would like them. (Full thread in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg)
Certainly, this is a broad generalization, but I believe the principle is sound. Vast legions of people like to eat at McDonalds–countless more than those who like to eat at an expensive gourmet restaurant. But the fact that McDonald’s is more economically viable than a unique high-end restaurant does not mean that it serves better food. I think that along these same lines, there is often a marked difference between a popular game and a good game.
As I said, I continue to mull this issue over. One possible solution is to have permadeath as an option on character creation, and offer higher levels or some other benefit to permadeath players as a reward for the increased risk. While I think this is attractive in several ways, I also dislike it somewhat because I tend to dislike game mechanisms that put players alongside each other but on different fields, so to speak. It’s the same reason I do not care for segregated “PvP” (allowing player vs. player combat) and “PvE” (player vs. environment) zones. Do it completely one way, or do it completely the other way, but I shy away from game limitations imposing themselves on the story.
Which brings me to the final point: Geoff correctly pointed out that really, I am not seeking a game. I seek an interactive fiction. To me, the ideal RPG ought to be merely a transparent mechanism to a greater story, a history written by players and reflecting the triumph, the tragedy, the valor, the nobility, the villainy, and the fabric of the world the players live in. The game mechanism ought to seamlessly allow and encourage players to weave a story that is worth reading. Is this interactive fiction required to make a game fun? No, obviously not. Is it required to make a game great? Absolutely.