[Vortar the Mad]

As Scott pointed out I may be the resident expert on dying.
I pretty much only play Vortar and he was made WAY before I undrstood how anything worked on the server.

For me permadeath isn't a good option...I play at odd hours and have no patience. If I come home from work and want to beat up stuff on Vortar that is what I do...with or without anyone else. This leads to dying because the general difficulty on the server is pretty high and as Scott pointed out everything is randomized. Sometimes you get a Banshee, sometimes the dread warriors crit you and blammo...fugue.

I'm ok with this, I view it as the price I have to pay for playing the way I want to play, and even have fun rp'ing about it. If however permadeath was instated..I would have to play WAY more cautiously, always group up and run from things etc. Fine I guess, but just not my playstyle and definately not as fun.

I got all of my freebies before level 3 because I really had NO idea what you could and couldn't do. I'm sure many new players are the same. I absolutely LOVE rp'ing with all the excellent players here and participating in the events, but if nobody is on and no events are running I don't want to hang up my keyboard.

The death penalty as it stands is pretty steep, especially for Vortar who also takes a 20% xp penalty for disparate level classes. Believe me, I try not to die but it happens, sometimes because I am charging a Tanari, sometimes because I lag out and wake up dead on the plains. I like to have the mulligan so I can continue to play if I want.

If others are into permadeath because it heightens their excitement, I figure all you have to do is NOT respawn. I personally would just prefer to be able to beat up trash mobs for fun and hope to meet my end in an event or something.

[Payne]

(they state their help will make it harder due to spawn levels) so you are forced to solo on low levels...

This is a myth, truly. If you band together with characters around your own level you have BLODDY MANY ADVANTAGES and the spawns do not play against you - read it up: http://thaypw.org/showthread.php?tid=259 and http://thaypw.org/showthread.php?tid=232 and http://thaypw.org/showthread.php?tid=3

KTA

Caps being true or not, thats what at least I, am told when I've suggested trips. :D

[EdinSumar]

So, 7 against, 0 for.

[Calypso Merovingen]

Payne is correct about the situation as it is in practice.

Let me talk about the situation from a more subjective side than I did before ?
On an online world you meet players to interact with , but it is a rare chance to encounter someone who is at a compatible level and can manage the same time.
Banding together usually stays theory.

In practice it turns out to be the opposite of what rolegaming in a group was and the spirit of the times that brought it forth.
A rolegaming online world is great, because you can take a peek in when you have time and feel like it, but your group of players doesn't sit around you squeezing the sofas and chairs, munching stuff , drinking and laughing.

The feeling is that it was never meant to be a graveyard for pcs that get used up like one-way plastic bottles going into recycling so rolegaming doesn't get much of a chance.
The nintendo world has changed the perception of rolegaming, but they are quite different in character

Especially a first pc needs better chances to get acquainted with the dangers. A new player can't know that an ork, a bandit in the sewers , a slaver practically keel over when hit with a cotton-ball, while a thug in the street, a mephit or a glob of slime are owerpowering and can kill you even if you run fast.

[Karilynn]

Is there a way to let players choose whether or not to have 'permadeath' for their PC (outside of RP and just not deciding to come back, but like a 'turn on or off' option like HTF)? If it can't be scripted that way, even if permadeath isn't in, a player could always choose not to bring their PC back after that PC dies.

[Sten]

Well you can just decide to let your PC die, as I did with my Cleric, and when you do that the next PC you make will start with an XP bonus. my lvl 5 gave me enough XP to start out as a lvl 2 on my new PC (Dont know if it only goes up to lvl 2)

[kta]

Max. starting level is 9: http://thaypw.org/showthread.php?tid=9

KTA

[Calypso Merovingen]

Thay player to Thay players:
Permadeath would come close to erasing the aims of rolegaming itself.
How many players are still in the mood of typing a good rolegaming dialogue for the pc into the keyboard, if the pc is in the Fugue plain literally seconds later, because some "player" has decided to attack the pc with a smiling face in the player window, without announcement or subdual or sparring.
The player toggles the pc to subdual as the other pc will probably be attacking in subdual. That moment means another violent death by another pc.
There is more dying by other pcs now than anything resembling normal ic activity.

This has happened almost every second day to my pc's. Whether the lack of subdual was the player's intention or not, it puts creative ideas out of your head, only violence and death are left.

It shows that the crazy mix-up of requested or required options in the rules leads to an unhealthy situation that is not recommendable even to a server that defines itself as a challenge.
By the way, players who prefer killing pcs instead of using other means of ic like subdual are sick. No serwer law or ideology in the world will ever change that.

Real world person to the real world persons:
( yes, there has to be a third beside pc and Thay player position !)
This server supports those who wish to outlaw rolegaming with weapons and killing in general.
Those who take political action in this are unrealistic and don't have the slightest idea what they are talking about, but rolegamers here are worried.
The most violent mix - up of rules and the quote below however are an extreme vote on those politicians' side and not necesary for the logic of the Thay server.
Now my perception - I get the impression that Thay players are so immersed into the server's world that their real world background knowledge and responsibility gets subdued, when I read the following text .It is indeed lightyears from anything that can ever be legal in a game.

As a Thay - player I enjoy Thay and would like it to continue, but no real world person can tolerate such an event or text in an internet game :

Inside the wagon sits a person that must have been a beautiful woman once, once because now there is almost nothing left of her. Writhing in agony she has little hair left, her bones can be seen under a yellow thin skin and her hands and feet are missing. Where her eyes use to be two black, crusted holes stare into the sun, but the most scaring feature on her face is the mouth - or better the lack of it...
Two guards carry her onto a large stone table and a third unceremoniously hacks off her head with a heavy axe.

[LifeLikeSage]

On the topic of Permadeath,

Dear DM team/Administrators, I have done some reading and have noticed that this server once had a realistic permadeath system. My friend and I are avid HCRPers who enjoy permadeath systems because of the realism that it brings to our gaming. Thus we came to Thay in search of a setting in which we could create characters to watch them unfold, change, and react to the environment, much like watching a good movie with character development, plot, ect...

To everyone: Many if not ALL of the servers that exist today in NWN are all softcore. Amongst all of the RP servers that we have scanned through, we have found no servers that possess systems that facilitate immersible and social RP to our standards. After the fall of our "Estium" server, the only 3 servers that have implemented fugue plane permadeath have now removed it. So I have high hopes that Thay will be the last server standing for permadeath. I understand that players have attachments to characters they make, this is likely because most players often avatar themselves in the characters they make. Unfortunately for those that dread loss of characters, I side with permadeath on the notion that it makes adventures COUNT!!!
No longer will players go into dangerous areas with a drone-like attitude of apathy. With the existence of permadeath, every excursion is epic, every trip to be taken seriously. I must add however, that I strongly suggest that characters should only be permadead IF their corpse is not recovered and brought to a temple to be resurrected. Regardless of whicher way the death system will go, I hope that the server will at least include (or continue to include) XP loss on death and the ability to delevel. This is mainly to support high level PCs being the result of the PC's experience in how to deal with monsters and situations. A good and experienced adventurer knows that victory is merely the result of having the advantage in a fight... So if you want to emerge victorious ALL THE TIME, the solution is to pick your fights, not to be the very best fighter.

My reasons for supporting permadeath, and the fugue plane system of PCs reviving eachother are as follows:
- Allowing PCs to be saved by each other in this manner encourages social RP-like behavior and punishes soloing by making it riskier and harder.
- Death will be realistic. A PC's body will remain where it fell as would be expected. I strongly dislike seeing players get their PCs killed, then mad rush back to the exact place where they died to continue as if nothing had every happened. Seeing this RP abuse firsthand, I strongly ask the DM team to consider reimplementing permadeath for the sake of RP and those who seek to immerse themselves into serious RP.
* The strongest point by far, is indisputably the need for death to be taken seriously. If death cannot be seen by players as a serious consequence of risky behavior, how can you expect players to take a serious approach with their characters in relation to death? For example: If there is no permadeath, you can expect players to charge enemies mercilessly despite their condition. They do this simply because dying only means that they just need to run back a few minutes to return to the fray.

Additionally, I have to disagree with previous statements of "there would be no more Vortar" as reasons for wanting to keep a system which allows inexperienced PCs to be saturated in experience. When I see a high level PC, I imagine that the PC would possess some elite skill in decision making that had allowed it to survive as long as it did (especially in work fields that entail high levels of danger). In other words, I have seen many servers where it is only a matter of time until EVERYONE has max level characters. This favors playing the game for "more time" rather than favoring playing the game to improve, or have PCs becoming "better from experience", in other words, betterment from learning to excel in necessary situational assessments.

Lastly, I want to express to the DMs that they should make their decision based on what they intend the server to be. They the builders, scripters, and DMs that have placed tremendous amounts of effort and time into creating a world they are proud to support and bring to others. I simply wish to find a server in which I can find realistic settings to play in. So I suggest to the administrators of the server that they MUST: * Take a stand one way or another on permadeath, *Explain clearly to the players what exactly permadeath means and precisely what they will change so players can give their opinion based on an informed decision. In the end, I, and all other players will have to make their decision to stay or leave based on how serious they want their RP experience to be. Likewise, the DMs/Administrators should hope to attract those that will enjoy the game with them in the way the DMs/Administrators wish to enjoy the game.

All above posts are merely SUGGESTIONS. They are based on and supported by RP reasoning.

[kta]

No longer will players go into dangerous areas with a drone-like attitude of apathy. With the existence of permadeath, every excursion is epic, every trip to be taken seriously.

That is exactly the way I play my characters and I know many people who do the same. There are exceptions, but those characters do not last long anyway because in the end those who play like that will realize that a character becomes useless after a time. In your whole statement you neglect one thing - notoriety. This server does not measure the power of individuals in XP but rather in their notoriety, that is WAY HARDER to come by and the loss of it is WAY MORE devastating, especially as you can not "read up" the amount a character possesses directly. I have characters that never walk into certain areas because I as a player are afraid to go there and loose ONE SINGLE rescue shot by my mysterious savior...

- Allowing PCs to be saved by each other in this manner encourages social RP-like behavior and punishes soloing by making it riskier and harder.

Easy for you to say, depending on my work shifts I as a European am rather deprived of most of our US playerbase - which is the vast majority and stands like 1:50...

In other words, I have seen many servers where it is only a matter of time until EVERYONE has max level characters. This favors playing the game for "more time" rather than favoring playing the game to improve, or have PCs becoming "better from experience", in other words, betterment from learning to excel in necessary situational assessments.

I have to disagree on this point because it does not apply here. In all the time the server is up and running we had ONE character hit the max level barrier at lvl 20. One. This player did reach this position after a long time and mostly from superior RP and not through rushing headlong into each and every battle. Let alone soloing.

KTA