RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes

Caspar · **02-04-2016, 04:06 AM**

(01-31-2016, 04:15 PM)GunsBlazing Wrote: We're playing in a world that is torn by wars on multiple fronts with extremely powerful enemies with the addition of several severe dangers. Dragons, primals, certain beastmen and Garleans are all very real threats to the safety of our characters. Put yourselves in the shoes of your character; now, is it not entirely unbelievable to assume every friend you make in the Quicksand is going to live to see tomorrow? Most people who RP on this game play a mercenary or some sort of character that Â readily puts themselves in harms way, so death isn't an if, but a when. I think anyone who tries to keep you from killing off your character through a guilt trip is really hindering your storytelling ability. Very few things are more powerful than the death of a character, especially a very loved one, in a story. I mean, look at any forum online for anything about Haurchefant pre-heavens ward. Nobody really cared enough about him to ever say anything worthwhile, yet after he died, people were in tears and paying tribute to him in silly ways. Death is a powerful narrative. A lot of times, people's deaths have a bigger impact on the world around them than their lives ever will. We're all adults, here. I think we can handle losing a friendship of a fictional character through their untimely demise. If not, then perhaps you should only associate with people who play characters who never go into battle or walk down any dark alleys.

Any and all of my characters are open to death during role play. If you want to kill my character, they're going to fight back, though. We'll random it, and you will be the one dying if i win the fight. I won't accept a mortal bout if the street doesn't go both ways. Anyone willing to kill another character should always be willing to be slain, themselves.

It's a pretty useful plot element to be sure.
However, consider the possibility that four characters you know die within the span of two days due to /random combat.
What if by the third one you've gotten tired of the same "A person close to me died and I'm traumatized/sad/confused" RP over and over again? If you're like me, you don't want to give the fourth player inferior play simply because the story thread has been tread into the ground. Or other players would not want to hazard RPing when their character is supposed to be grieving because they're sick of the storyline and don't want their PC to come off as callous. Or they do, and their character writing becomes slipshod, and more importantly, it eventually isn't fun anymore. Or maybe the players engaged stop trying to write complex enough characters that they'd be disappointed to lose them. Some players aren't satisfied with writing characters structured around the possibility that they can't actually do anything they think would be cool if they get unlucky once or twice. When I make a character who could die anytime, like in a pen and paper campaign, usually I imbue them with enough traits to make them interesting, but never really try anything complex as that would take a sustained narrative to achieve. And yet, that is exactly what I really want to do. Because that complexity makes a character's death actually worth something to me. Otherwise, I won't remember Dead Friend #4

"I think we are all adults here" is also a pretty interesting chastisement. I get the impression this is suggesting that the player on the receiving end of the random death is blending their OOC appreciation of a character with that of their own. I would suggest, as a lot of people did already, that OOC frustration is actually just OOC frustration. To me, RP with others quickly becomes collaborative writing, where you're not just responsible for your own entertainment. You can call your character your baby, but their parentage is looking pretty uncertain with so many other characters mutating and blending their development, even sometimes changing their background or the context of their personal struggles merely by existing. When the writer on the other end of the line hangs up abruptly, creating an unpleasant experience for everyone else involved, does this mean they do not have a right to be frustrated? The "deal with it" attitude, at least to me, makes more sense when you're writing a self-contained story, because it's just yours, only one chef in the kitchen. You decide on the flavor, you decide on the dishes served, you decide when kitchen opens and closes. When playing with others though, I can see why the unilateral approach isn't always appreciated.

Is your character open for killing/death? What about injury?

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes