Hello. As the title of this thread states, I'm starting a kinship for RP mixed with self imposed permadeath. I figure it's a good way to spice things up and make the game more interesting/challenging.

FAQ:

Q: What server are you on and how can I join?

A. Elendilmir. Rindi is the kinship leader. Right now we are only taking players under level 20, and I doubt that will change. If you are higher than that we would love for you to make a new character to play with us. Most characters will probably be created specifically for this kinship, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Q: What is perma-death and how does it work?

A: Strictly speaking, perma-death means that when your character is defeated it is permanently erased. LOTRO does not support perma-death, so in <By Life or Death> perma-death is based on an honor system. We also have some exceptions and alternatives that make it not a 100% strict perma-death playstyle.

Q: Why would someone want to play when your character can be erased?

A: There are several reasons. The main thing is that it adds an element of excitement and realism to the game. It fundamentally changes how you play and view the game. For players who have a high level character or two and might be getting a little bored, this can be an attractive playstyle. I would not recommend this for someone who is just starting unless you just really like the idea.

Q: You mentioned exemptions to perma-death. What are those?

A: First off we do not expect anyone to penalize themselves for things that were completely beyond their control such as bugs, death caused by lag or disconnect, etc. We also are planning on two other alternatives to character deletion. One is exile and the other is injury.

Q: What is exile?

A: If you do have a character that dies, technically you won’t be forced to delete them. If you want to keep the character, he can be exiled. The character is removed from the kinship and barred from all kinship events, quests, activities, etc. As far as the kinship is concerned, the character is dead. You can continue playing that character if you want, but we will encourage that you either get a name change or transfer the character to another server.

Q: What is injury?

A: The injury system is something that I have been thinking about. It’s not fully developed, but the basic idea is that if you are defeated and you can get rezed within a certain period of time, then you have a chance to avoid permadeath. This would be determined by a /roll. Roll above a certain number and you are just injured. Roll below a certain number and you face permadeath (or exile). If you are injured then you must rest your character for a period of time, determined by another roll. Serious injuries (low second rolls) might even cause permanent damage (self imposed loss of certain traits and abilities). The purpose of an injury system would be to make certain extremely dangerous content more accessible. Like I said, this isn’t fully developed yet. I’m hoping to get input from players in By Life or Death so that everyone is involved in the process.

Q: What about skills like Desperate Flight and Hide in Plain Sight? Won’t those give a huge advantage to hunters/burglars.

A: Yes, so we will be asking our members to refrain from using those skills to escape death. It’s fine to use DF as a travel convenience or to HIPS in a group so that you can execute a Trip. Again, this will be an honor system issue for our players.

For anyone interested, I can be contacted on the character Rindi on Elendilmir. Or if you want to share any ideas, please do!

This sounds like a fun and interesting project.

I did this to a small extent trying to get the Undying title on my hunter and it was pretty intense.

It would be interesting to know how you'd deal with high end content where wipes are pretty much par for the course (if you do them at all, that is).

One suggestion is that you impose permadeath only if the character fails to be "rezzed" before his time runs out.

Originally posted by rikilii

This sounds like a fun and interesting project.

I did this to a small extent trying to get the Undying title on my hunter and it was pretty intense.

It would be interesting to know how you'd deal with high end content where wipes are pretty much par for the course (if you do them at all, that is).

 

One suggestion is that you impose permadeath only if the character fails to be "rezzed" before his time runs out.

I think the bottom line is that if you're going to do something like this, you can't really plan on doing a lot of "end game" content.  First of all, just getting to level 50 is going to be tough.  But it's hard to say exactly how tough.  If you were extremely careful, then I think you could do it without too much trouble. 

Then once you get to max level, it completely changes how you play the game there.  If you did try to do something like Carn Dum, you wouldn't want to go in with people you didn't trust or without a well balanced group.  And you would need to be very careful.  Even then you're risking a lot.  But then again, the thrill of completing it would be intense!  It adds so much realism if your character is really going to die.  I can't wait! 

Raids would pretty much be a death sentence, so I don't expect we'll be doing them.   6 man instances, if you know what your doing, are much easier to prevent death. 

Well, I would be into this kind of thing, but only if the game had some specific provision for it.  As it is, this would pretty much involve just repeating the same linear content over and over again.

I do think there is room in the MMO genre for permadeath.  I just don't think the existing games support the style.

Originally posted by rikilii

Well, I would be into this kind of thing, but only if the game had some specific provision for it.  As it is, this would pretty much involve just repeating the same linear content over and over again.

I do think there is room in the MMO genre for permadeath.  I just don't think the existing games support the style.

I don't see why you would need the game to have provisions for it.  The big problem with having the game govern permadeath is that it has no discression.   So if your internet connection drops out and gets you killed, your character is gone through no fault of your own.  That's why an honor system will work better than a hard coded system.   It worked in old school D&D because the players/DM were in complete control of the environment. 

Why don't you just try it out and see how you like it.  And remember, this is also going to be an RP kinship, so the content is only as linear as you make it.  You really don't have anything to lose (except your life...  muahaha!).  But seriously if you make it to high levels and die, you don't have to delete your character.  The least you have to do with him is quit the kinship, i.e. go into exile.  You're dead to the kinship, but you can still play that character if you want.  We'll encourage people to either get the name changed or transfer the character to another server (which will work out very well if you're like me and you have mains on another server). 

Originally posted by Wrymstrum

 

Why don't you just try it out and see how you like it. 

Two reasons, really:

1.  I'm not interested in RP enough to make up for a lack of sufficient compelling content or having to repeat compelling content over and over again.

2.  I already have a level 50 character, have seen all the content I care to see (except the end-game stuff) and don't really want to level through it again.  I generally prefer to move forward, not back.

Originally posted by rikilii

 

Originally posted by Wrymstrum

 

Why don't you just try it out and see how you like it. 

 

Two reasons, really:

1.  I'm not interested in RP enough to make up for a lack of sufficient compelling content or having to repeat compelling content over and over again.

2.  I already have a level 50 character, have seen all the content I care to see (except the end-game stuff) and don't really want to level through it again.  I generally prefer to move forward, not back.

Fair enough.  Let me know if you change your mind though :)

Not joining (kinda bored out of LotRo after 6 years), but how about family? You can make quite a big family tree (my char was 11th generation in one oO), and when a character dies, will his estate be split up amongst his siblings..?

Not really j/k here, but I like the idea of a perm-death RP kinship and I wish you best of luck!