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

[LadyRochester]

It's for research purposes.

 

Just kidding, I'm just curious. It's not like I'm trying to see who I could potentially murder or not, haha, that's silly.

 

Just kidding, I'm curious.

 

Really.

 

 

ANYWAY~

 

Personally, I got two characters. One could be killed at any time and by anyone (as long as it's arranged OOC beforehand and it actually makes sense.)The other, while she is open for death, she's currently under a "lock" where only particular characters can kill her while she's involved in a certain plot, and I will be a little more reluctant to kill her off than my alt. (Even though he's totally cool.)

 

Both characters can get severely injured by others at any time, however. I'm a lot more flexible with this than I am with death. I have zero qualms with someone hurting my characters as long as they reasonably understand that IC actions bear IC consequences.

 

 

What about yourself?

[111]

All of my characters are up for being killed, and I've killed my main character before. 

 

HOWEVER

 

The last time I killed a major character it was all rather 'off the cuff' and it damaged all my RP and even several real world relationships. So I'll think twice about doing it again, and consider all the ramifications. It's not off the table though!

[LadyRochester]

All of my characters are up for being killed, and I've killed my main character before. 

 

HOWEVER

 

The last time I killed a major character it was all rather 'off the cuff' and it damaged all my RP and even several real world relationships. So I'll think twice about doing it again, and consider all the ramifications. It's not off the table though!

 

I had people threatening that they wouldn't rp with me again if I kill off my character, apparently it's something "too horrible" for their characters to handle and it ruins their rp as well, but to be honest, rp is rp, whatever happens, happens. People shouldn't be so sensitive about other characters dying. The only moment I can imagine people justifying their anger is if my character was their really close friend or lover and I killed them off without a warning, since it WILL affect their own characters.

 

Otherwise? Nah son, stop crying.

[Aaron]

Yep. My character follows the Yolo rule. Therefore you will never see him going about talking about he can beat anyone or isn't afraid of death.

 

Cause time someone calls him on it it'd be at that moment where he'd realize he fucked up.

[Dravus]

I'd be willing to kill off my character under the right circumstances. I've done it before in other MMO's and I don't really feel guilty about it because I felt like it made sense and that their time had come.

 

If Garlemald ends up lacking any redeeming qualities when we explore it more in-depth in the future then I'll likely just kill off Graeham since a lot of his character development is based around highlighting Eorzea's hypocrisy...whilst also pointing out that not every Garlean aligned with Garlemald is a terrible person.

 

With that said, however, in my experience only a tiny minority of role-players are prepared to actually kill off their characters and even if they do they may end up coming to regret it and simply bring them back.

[Warren Castille]

Personally, I got two characters. One could be killed at any time and by anyone (as long as it's arranged OOC beforehand and it actually makes sense.)The other, while she is open for death, she's currently under a "lock" where only particular characters can kill her while she's involved in a certain plot, and I will be a little more reluctant to kill her off than my alt. (Even though he's totally cool.)

 

People shouldn't be so sensitive about other characters dying. The only moment I can imagine people justifying their anger is if my character was their really close friend or lover and I killed them off without a warning, since it WILL affect their own characters.

 

Otherwise? Nah son, stop crying.

 

Are these views compatible? It's something I never understood. What "makes sense OOCly" for your character to die? If you're caught unaware by someone playing a ruthless cutpurse or worse, someone trying to establish themselves as a serial killer-type person, do those things not make sense because they're not arranged ahead of time?

 

Characters dying will cause the people who knew them to mourn. It throws people into a weird position: Act completely callous and pretend it doesn't bother them? That's potentially forcing them to act in a way that's unbecoming of their character. Do they instead then have to derail their mood away to properly grieve the lost? That's not fun or exciting (though my biases as hating IRL funerals is certainly painting my opinion here).

 

Dying or being killed sort of forces RP onto people who might not be looking for that sort of thing. On the one hand, it's completely fair to do whatever you want to your character. On the other hand, it's not crying if someone would prefer to see that person, you know, live.

[Maril]

I am usually all for accepting the mortality of my characters, but for my main (Nailah) I have the reservation on her that she isn't kill-able without it being entirely planned out, because of her role in my FC. My alts are fair game though, and they will die if they genuinely can not get out of the trouble they have landed themselves in. E.G if someone stabs them a lot and leaves them to bleed out in a place where no one goes, they're unlikely to make it. I do prefer it not to be meaningless though, I think just randomly killing characters kind of takes away from the aspect of death in rp. In past games, I've always killed my mains when I left the game - through plots and other means, because I like to have proper closure to them. I've yet to kill off any of my characters here in FF entirely, but it might happen in the future, who knows. 

 

Injuries is a different story though, and all of my characters have scars and discomforts from the injuries they've sustained through not just story but also RP encounters. I prefer to have some leniency with scars in terms of where they end up, within the bounds of what I feel is realistic. In most cases I've started off my characters as a blank slate with no or minimal scars, in favor of letting their conflicts and encounters scar them.

[desmond28]

I love my character too much to kill him. I actually had him killed at one point, seemingly, but it was under my control and I was the only who knew it was going to happen. It was a pretty cool shocker to all involved, lots of fun.

 

That being said I am not open for random people thinking they can harm my character without explicitly going over it with me beforehand. So injury is the only thing that I would allow if it suited my story. I also don't do incapacitated states that will render my character unavailable for extended periods, unless I'm personally going to be out of the game for some time. On the other hand, I do some neat events with the FC I'm in that my character could easily be injured or knocked out, but again I join that knowing such a thing could happen.

 

Killing is out of the question.

[Melodia]

I have no issue with characters of mine dying. It's a risk in a world with Garleans, dragon wars, etc.

 

Friends and other players might mourn but its completely unfair to end or damage RL friendships over fiction. It'd be like me seeing a movie or reading a book and being so hurt by the unexpected death of someone that I boycotted that story forever and the author of said story.

 

Yes I know it happens, but doesn't make it right. Makes it stupid. *Hugs to McBeef for that happening to her*

[Warren Castille]

Friends and other players might mourn but its completely unfair to end or damage RL friendships over fiction. It'd be like me saying or doing hurtful things to other people, then not understanding how my behavior upset them.

 

 

You can't blame people you've made bonds with for being upset that one party decided to snip those bonds. It's not their fault your actions hurt them.

[Dravus]

It's possible for people to get very attached to a character. Even if that character isn't their own creation. Kathy Bate's excellent performance as Annie Wilkes in Stephen King's 'Misery' is a great example of that. I've endured and witnessed my fair share of horror stories about people becoming completely unhinged over someone else's role-play not going the way they wanted it to go.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Death within RP is complicated. When people say "the right time OOCly", I see that as meaning when one or more of the following can be established from the RP:

1. The character's story has ended (whether planned or abruptly, but it "fits")
   
2. There is some form of coordination with other related characters. (As in, if I've been planning all this other RP with people and suddenly decide my character is going to die, I've made the proper arrangements OOC and possibly IC such that I'm not causing damage to someone else's RP/fun because it came out of nowhere).
   
3. My character is not in any other plots or arcs that hinge upon my character being alive or well. (Typically though, I like to RP as a side-character, so this is generally not a concern).
   

Now, to actually answer the question, yes, I'd say Franz is killable. That's not consent for someone's serial-killer alt who only comes out once a month and who's still got the "new player" icon to walk up and stab him to death because they need another increment on their body count. Part of the whole making a character thing is telling their story. And there are certain things I want to accomplish with Franz before he might be retired or killed off. (Why the obsession with RPing to death? Can't characters simply exit the narrative? Perhaps they live mildly-contented forever after. Or happy. Or unhappy. Or any combination of things? Most of these people are under the age of 30! There's so much more to life than getting a weapon and then getting killed!)

 

Likewise, if I'm planning on ending Franz's story one way or another, I'd rather tie up loose ends OOCly if not preferably, ICly. While other people do not have control of my character, I don't think it's completely fair to say I exclusively own a collaborative story I've developed with someone else. Especially with something as delicate as unexpected death.

[Warren Castille]

Similarly, not everyone who likes a character is an insane stalker-murderer. We're all culpable for our own actions, and that includes how our actions affect other people. Acting without thought or care of how we might impact our friends and peers is an incredibly selfish thing to do.

 

I'm not against killing characters, for what it's worth.

[Melodia]

Friends and other players might mourn but its completely unfair to end or damage RL friendships over fiction. It'd be like me saying or doing hurtful things to other people, then not understanding how my behavior upset them.

 

 

You can't blame people you've made bonds with for being upset that one party decided to snip those bonds. It's not their fault your actions hurt them.

Editing my quote to try and make some point only confuses my initial one. The way you've written it makes it look like the hurt was malicious or intentional. The fact is, nobody owns each other's characters. if the owner of a character wants to kill off a character that's their prerogative. It's no different than someone lapsing their account and disappearing for months and months only to suddenly return. We're told in those cases to "adapt and try to find other rp." I say the same for folks who choose to have their characters killed. Act like an adult and understand that fictional character is no longer around and find new rp.

 

EDIT: I really just like debating an interesting topic, that of characters vs relationships. *hugs Warren* I see his point as well.

[allgivenover]

I've done it a few times, with overall mixed results.

 

Despite that I'm still willing to let a character die, but I have no concrete rules about it.

[Warren Castille]

Friends and other players might mourn but its completely unfair to end or damage RL friendships over fiction. It'd be like me saying or doing hurtful things to other people, then not understanding how my behavior upset them.

 

 

You can't blame people you've made bonds with for being upset that one party decided to snip those bonds. It's not their fault your actions hurt them.

Editing my quote to try and make some point only confuses my initial one. The way you've written it makes it look like the hurt was malicious or intentional. The fact is, nobody owns each other's characters. if the owner of a character wants to kill off a character that's their prerogative. It's no different than someone lapsing their account and disappearing for months and months only to suddenly return. We're told in those cases to "adapt and try to find other rp." I say the same for folks who choose to have their characters killed. Act like an adult and understand that fictional character is no longer around and find new rp.

 

Not malicious or intentional, but most likely willfully ignorant. How would your friends or coworkers feels if you just up and moved without telling anyone? As adults and/or mature people, we're supposed to be aware of our own accountability in our actions. If we do potentially hurtful things, we don't get to blame other people for being hurt because we didn't think it would upset them.

 

Again, not to say that some people won't overreact or handle things poorly, but ask Nat about the blow-up that came through sometime (or don't!). It affected a giant wave of characters who had to both process the fact a character was gone, as well as then having to handle the IC ramifications of how it happened. It got so bad that several people involved chose to pocket-retcon the incident itself because the fallout could have led to outright war as the only logical conclusion.

 

I get that roleplayers vis a vis roleplayers tend to have esteem issues, but we're all probably worth a lot more communally than we'd ever give ourselves credit for. Deciding to kill a character off without at least letting your IC or OOC friends know is the ultimate in "fuck you, I do what I want" routines.

[Askier]

The following is my opinion and is neither right nor wrong, just an opinion.

 

First, I find the fact that Nat received such dramatic backlash for her choice to kill her character to be really surprising.  I've always respected Nat for having the balls to ACTUALLY kill her main character and go through with it all the way. Killing off a character isn't an easy thing at all to begin with and I always felt Nat's death was one of the most memorable moments in my rp career.  Especially since I was there when Nat did it. 

 

Second, if someone decides to axe their character off, it's their right to do so.  Will it affect other characters? Yoouuuu beeet ya.  But is death in real life any different? Do we get to PICK when the people we love go?  Do we get a nice, drawn out -hey I'll be dying soon- talk from those about to go?  No.  Death is something that can happen in a flash with no ceremony or warning and to say that people should be warned OOC is a nice idea but, in my opinion, hardly a necessary one. Maybe that makes me an ass, but doesn't the idea that we could lose a beloved character at any moment make the rp spent with them even better?

 

People talk about how death is so common in Eorzea, so doesn't a player character dying actually drive that reality home? What good is saying "Eorzea is dangerous" if no one ever dies?

 

People kill off characters for all sorts of reasons. Plot purposes, tired of playing them, etc.  Hell I've axed off like five different characters for various reasons.  I think its a very viable tool and one players should use if/when they desire to do so and I always respect a player when they do it cause it takes guts.  If you haven't killed off a character, trust me when I say it really is something not done lightly.

 

So in answer to the OP, yeah I'm open to killing my characters. lol

[Unnamed Mercenary]

@Askier, that's why I focus on at least a bare-minimum OOC. Death can and usually is unexpected, unless we're going to debate if Eorzea has policies on euthanasia. But at the same time, I don't think people are asking for loads of detail, but something like a heads up. "Hey, my character has a chance of dying in this arc. If things go that way, I'm going to roll with it." Like RPing a White Mage or other heavily debated topics, I don't think killing off ones character is something everyone should do. How someone dies is perhaps more important to the story than when or where someone dies. If it's poorly executed (sorry, I tried. After four attempts of rephrasing, I couldn't find any better words), then it's not the death that causes issues but the aftermath. Just like how people usually aren't planning to accommodate death on any day of the week, other RPers aren't planning on their contacts suddenly disappearing or dying with nothing to go for it.

 

But the thing with character death is that it does kill IC connections. While OOC ones may still be there, a given arc isn't suddenly paused or restarted to reboot IC connections halfway through.

 

And how many times has Jin'li been killed?

[GhostlyMaiden]

Nanagi is my first character ever created on ffxiv. I love her to death. Someone dying happens, weather it be a more 'natural' death (sickness or old age) or  'unnatural' (murder, suicide), death comes for everyone eventually.

 

Although I would hate to see Nanagi die, it is something that can very likely happen. I am fine if she is killed off, BUT IT MUST BE TALKED ABOUT OOC! This is to ensure that everyone agrees, and that it will make since considering certain events. My other reason for wanting to talk about it ooc is to avoid any possible drama. 

 

I already had to deal with ooc drama over something stupid (and unrelated to character death), and I wish to avoid it as much as possible. If it comes down to Nanagi having to die or w/e, then I want it to be as drama free as possible.

[LadyCleriseaux]

I would say that my main is up for being offed. I have ats I can always switch to, and a spare fantasia.

 

That ebing said, I would obviously discuss it with people beforehand before it happened.

[Akasumi]

For my character, Akasumi, I have no issues with her being injured.  With that being said, I would greatly prefer it if someone that wished to do so would speak to me first just to give me the fast basis of what's going to happen.  As for killing off my characters?  Mm.  There has to be a DAMN near compelling reason for me to do so.  Such as, I am not having fun on the character.  And I won't do so lightly.  And more times than not, my answer will be no.

 

I believe in:  You perform an action that causes a reaction, you better damn well be ready to face the consequences.  Too many RP'ers I see are do not take this into account.  Or refuse to accept the consequences.  If my character gets involved in a fight, or fights to protect someone (actions), I fully expect those she's fighting against to be REALLY pissed off (reaction).  And if they are better trained than her, or physically stronger (stats/levels mean nothing) such as a Roe, I expect her to get hurt...if not badly if she makes a mistake in her fighting (consequence).  I expect gashes, broken bones, broken teeth, busted lips and about three months of recovery.

[Caspar]

The following is my opinion and is neither right nor wrong, just an opinion.

 

First, I find the fact that Nat received such dramatic backlash for her choice to kill her character to be really surprising.  I've always respected Nat for having the balls to ACTUALLY kill her main character and go through with it all the way. Killing off a character isn't an easy thing at all to begin with and I always felt Nat's death was one of the most memorable moments in my rp career.  Especially since I was there when Nat did it. 

 

Second, if someone decides to axe their character off, it's their right to do so.  Will it affect other characters? Yoouuuu beeet ya.  But is death in real life any different? Do we get to PICK when the people we love go?  Do we get a nice, drawn out -hey I'll be dying soon- talk from those about to go?  No.  Death is something that can happen in a flash with no ceremony or warning and to say that people should be warned OOC is a nice idea but, in my opinion, hardly a necessary one. Maybe that makes me an ass, but doesn't the idea that we could lose a beloved character at any moment make the rp spent with them even better?

 

People talk about how death is so common in Eorzea, so doesn't a player character dying actually drive that reality home? What good is saying "Eorzea is dangerous" if no one ever dies?

 

People kill off characters for all sorts of reasons. Plot purposes, tired of playing them, etc.  Hell I've axed off like five different characters for various reasons.  I think its a very viable tool and one players should use if/when they desire to do so and I always respect a player when they do it cause it takes guts.  If you haven't killed off a character, trust me when I say it really is something not done lightly.

 

So in answer to the OP, yeah I'm open to killing my characters. lol

I think this and that are different things. Since you primarily play villains, a lot of people likely expect your characters to die. It might be planned, but either way people aren't really going to be surprised by it. In a sense, it is actually a much lighter decision than it is for other PCs. I know a lot of folks who intend to kill their villains from the start. This isn't to say you can't have strong character relationships with a villain, only that fiction's conventions suggest a fate that leaves RPers less blindsided by death in many cases.

 

The big thing in your post that stuck out to me was the idea that because death is sudden in real life, it can, or perhaps even should be, in rp as well. As someone who's a fan of Kill 'em All Tomino's work, I'm familiar with the appeal to this. The director loves sudden death designed to shock the viewer and create a dangerous atmosphere. However much a narrative resembles real life, though, everything within it is designed with intent. However much characters resemble people, they are designed constructs. Nothing in a story is purposeless or happens on its own; even if the reason is simple like "I don't want to make another Gundam series" in Tomino's case, there is meaning behind everything that occurs. Fiction isn't real life, no matter how much it tries to be. When characters die, it serves a purpose, and the writer's intent is inextricably tied to that purpose. It's why I dislike terms like "forced" or "contrived" as in my view all fiction is a matter of hiding that artifice, but it's always there. The design behind the narrative, to me at least, renders attempts to impose the meaningless chaos of real life upon fiction simply stylistic affectation. The problem with this in the context of RP is that the character no longer only serves its creator's purpose.

 

What then does that say when a player you're working with suddenly kills off their PC? RP is group writing. If done with malice, this is essentially similar to the kid in creative writing who abruptly shifts a love story into a military drama during that exercise where you pass a story around the room and everyone adds something. But most people really just feel their character's story is done, or are tired of their character, and shouldn't be forced to keep playing them, so clearly it's not malicious. I think the key here is motivation and communication. When you RP, your character is your own but their story is shared, and it is courteous to work with others regarding that rather than against them, or you might as well be writing a fic. But it shouldn't be an unreasonable sense of personal attachment that keeps someone else's character in the story either. Tomino's work kills off character often out of a deliberate malice towards his viewers. Imagine the frustration the people co-writing his work would feel (if he ever allowed that to happen) when their own plans are derailed by his personal vision.

[cuideag]

It's bound to happen someday with who and what I RP. Injuries have been plenty but no one's quite done her in just yet (but not for lack of trying!). It will happen, though, and I just hope it'll be a good end.

[Val]

All of my characters are open to killing/death/injury at any time. I don't mind it. Some of them live pretty dangerous lives so I imagine it will come eventually, and I don't like the lack of risk that they simply can't be killed. 

 

So yeah, if someone wants to take Val out, they most certainly can. I'd be surprised if Melfice survives his current storyline, as well as other characters. There is always the option of revival, but that's something I don't take very lightly. It has to be big. It has to take effort. And it's probably going to be a one-off if it ever does happen.

[Coatleque]

[...] It will happen, though, and I just hope it'll be a good end.

 

That's all we can ever ask for.