Movable Corpses

[Joyrock]

I really don't mind how it works aslong as the corpse can be moved, and is more realistic.

[Weeblie]

Ah, yes, I believe my reasoning there was not completely clear as I thought. What I basicly meant was that in case of choosing the respawn option, the said character should, in my opinion, be forced to walk back to his/her location of death for a complete recovery (or wait 10 minutes/level just like now).

Kind of how it works now... If a Raise Dead/Resurrect spell is casted, no grave-praying has to be done. But if the bindstone is used instead, one has to get back to the location of death. :p

[Acacea]

Well, there are some things that would need to be sorted out. From my observations at least, it seems like most worlds that use these also use a fugue plane system rather than a bind system, which few places seem to use anymore. I'm not sure why the attachment to going all the way back if someone is willing to suck it up and carry the extremely heavy body of a comrade for miles, though. I know several people who wouldn't.

Go back to wherever the body is, sure... all the way back to site of death no matter what though, eh, don't see the point. If you get to the bottom of "the Deep" and someone dies there and respawns, no one is going to be returning to that location of course. However, if someone is actually insane/stoic enough to say they aren't leaving without their buddy, and encumbers themselves with a rotting body for a few months getting out, hey! Go ahead...

It's a poor example because of course anyone traveling in such a situation also has a cleric more than capable of resurrections, but still.

[Joyrock]

Well there way around the weight, like I often kept a mage spell handy that was not very useful, polymorph self. Umber hulk form can carry alot. I used it just for carrying big heavy fighter classes out of the dungeon.

It can use the bind system, we used your starting location or you bind spot, and players had the option of binding themselves to any safe location. be it there house, a inn, so we had it working pretty good on the bind location part. So it works very well with bind locations.

[Weeblie]

Well, there are some things that would need to be sorted out. From my observations at least, it seems like most worlds that use these also use a fugue plane system rather than a bind system, which few places seem to use anymore. I'm not sure why the attachment to going all the way back if someone is willing to suck it up and carry the extremely heavy body of a comrade for miles, though. I know several people who wouldn't.

Go back to wherever the body is, sure... all the way back to site of death no matter what though, eh, don't see the point. If you get to the bottom of "the Deep" and someone dies there and respawns, no one is going to be returning to that location of course. However, if someone is actually insane/stoic enough to say they aren't leaving without their buddy, and encumbers themselves with a rotting body for a few months getting out, hey! Go ahead...

It's a poor example because of course anyone traveling in such a situation also has a cleric more than capable of resurrections, but still.

Respawning + Praying at Moveable Corpse has the negative effect of... pranks... *Coughs.*

"Lesse... a dead body on the ground... lets... hide it! *Laughs and does just that.*"

[Lynn1020]

I have to agree with this.  I just died and while trying to get back to my grave invisible and was attacked by a snake as soon as I went through a transition.  Which caused me to die again and loose 8000  XP.  May not sound like much but for at level 8 that is a lot.  

[Gulnyr]

There wasn't really a misunderstanding there regarding its purpose, and frankly the desire to use a body instead of a grave is -my- wish, as it's a bit weird to have a gravestone magically pop up with name for all to read. Not sure where they come from. A body is identifiable and in character.

Bodies are nice, but wouldn't a body left behind alter things a lot?  I mean, if there is a body to return to, then isn't the person walking around a ghost or a bodiless soul or whatever?  If that's the new deal, that's fine, but there need to be extra changes to make it make sense.  There's no way a soul is wearing armor and swinging a sword, for example.  Respawned characters can do that  now because they aren't just souls but have actual bodies that aren't left behind.  *shakes a fist at glowing, translucent body effects*

The gravestones, while kind of strange, are just a marker.  They could be banners or glowing lights or anything.  I try to think of them as an OOC thing, so I may check them because I'm curious but try not to discuss them IC.  What matters is that they mark a location that has psychological importance for the character.  I imagine being resurrected and rebuilt by magical stones isn't exactly a wonderful experience, which is why characters are so drained afterward.  But they have a choice of passively waiting to recover or seizing the bull by the horns and facing the journey, returning exactly to their place of death, conquering the inner pain by force of will, and putting it all behind them.  "You'll feel better if you do something about it."

This doesn't have anything to do with bodies being movable, exactly, except that moving a body to a new location to be recovered would make people actually into ghosts (since no one has two bodies, and if you have a new body you don't need the old one, especially if you still have all your stuff) and that it kind of removes the "psychological struggle" aspect (which may just be me, anyway, heh).

[Acacea]

Bodies are nice, but wouldn't a body left behind alter things a lot?  I mean, if there is a body to return to, then isn't the person walking around a ghost or a bodiless soul or whatever?

No. There is already a body left behind, you just can't see it. Presumably it is eaten or something by trolls, who knows.

At the moment of your death, your soul is pulled away from your lifeless corpse and returns to where it is tethered, where your body is made anew. So technically your dead one is still there, anyway.

Edit - I don't disagree with the rest of your post, including the whole purpose of returning to the site of death. Though in my opinion, facing one's own dead body is kind of scarring, but that might just be me.

It can use the bind system, we used your starting location or you bind spot, and players had the option of binding themselves to any safe location. be it there house, a inn, so we had it working pretty good on the bind location part. So it works very well with bind locations.

I wasn't saying it couldn't be used with it, just that there are always some things to consider and factor into how something is done.

Respawning + Praying at Moveable Corpse has the negative effect of... pranks... *Coughs.*

"Lesse... a dead body on the ground... lets... hide it! *Laughs and does just that.*"

In all the places I've seen the corpses, you can also choose to burn it as well, preventing them from being raised. So...*Shrugs* In character. Not saying it would be added, just that I'm not sure it's considered a horrible downside as far as in-character actions go.

[Gulnyr]

No. There is already a body left behind, you just can't see it. Presumably it is eaten or something by trolls, who knows.

At the moment of your death, your soul is pulled away from your lifeless corpse and returns to where it is tethered, where your body is made anew. So technically your dead one is still there, anyway.

Okay, thanks.  I think if there are bodies left lying around, though, then the glow definitely has to go.  No one returning to a body is going to see that shining, see-through character and not believe he is a ghost.  It's hard enough to convince people now.

To firm up the explanation of my opinion, then, I'm not a big fan of movable corpses for the purpose of easier recovery.  If your character dies and gets a brand new body with all their gear, the only purpose for returning to the site of death or the body is psychological.  In fact, that would be true even if the dead body were teleported and revived by the bindstones.  Anyway, if the body is the important part (for whatever reason, rather than just being a marker) and is brought to the respawned character, then nothing has been overcome, really.  There wasn't any effort.  Recovering from that kind of trauma needs to require time or effort or both, and a system that allows players to get around those requirements lessens the cost of death.  Dying should mean something, and if it's only going to mean the potential loss of Soul Strands followed by a quick recovery, then maybe it would be easier just to remove the need to recover rather than add a way to haul corpses.

Understand that movable corpses sounds pretty cool to me, but when I think more about it, it just sounds like a way to try to have more of the good with less of the bad, to circumvent the cost of dying.

[Acacea]

I agree the glow should be gone either way, as it's supposed to represent the clear strain and trauma someone has gone through rather than being see-through. Don't ask me about the gear...never too sure on that one, hehe. Maybe the viewpoint should be that your whole body is returned too, though that's even weirder!

I don't actually care too much either way on the draggable corpses (though I do dislike the grave marker, which is irrelevant to the topic), because like the UD example, in most later cases you have a cleric on hand, period...

It doesn't seem to add a huge impact to me, but with the work done and most liking it for various reasons, I don't have any objections, either.

Well... that's not true, I guess it's more like "my objections to it and defenses of it even each other out." Which happens a lot. Heh.

[Joyrock]

Okay, thanks.  I think if there are bodies left lying around, though, then the glow definitely has to go.  No one returning to a body is going to see that shining, see-through character and not believe he is a ghost.  It's hard enough to convince people now.

To firm up the explanation of my opinion, then, I'm not a big fan of movable corpses for the purpose of easier recovery.  If your character dies and gets a brand new body with all their gear, the only purpose for returning to the site of death or the body is psychological.  In fact, that would be true even if the dead body were teleported and revived by the bindstones.  Anyway, if the body is the important part (for whatever reason, rather than just being a marker) and is brought to the respawned character, then nothing has been overcome, really.  There wasn't any effort.  Recovering from that kind of trauma needs to require time or effort or both, and a system that allows players to get around those requirements lessens the cost of death.  Dying should mean something, and if it's only going to mean the potential loss of Soul Strands followed by a quick recovery, then maybe it would be easier just to remove the need to recover rather than add a way to haul corpses.

Understand that movable corpses sounds pretty cool to me, but when I think more about it, it just sounds like a way to try to have more of the good with less of the bad, to circumvent the cost of dying.

Ok the first part I don't get. but you talk of the downside of a easy recovery? if your in a dungeon with 6 people you die, often they go back and escort you there easy recovery, same as if they just drag your body along.
Your not going to escape folks doing easy recovery. least with them having the body, it keeps a person out of the dungeon unless they all go find someone to raise them.

Now what does this add? Well your chars is in a romantic relationsship they wake up in there lovers arms, that RP can't really do that with respawn, it keeps things flowing.

Evil villian takes your body and wishes to raises you and then wishes to hold you for ransom. See the worst thing that can happen is someone stumbles on your body, and hides it but the forcing a respawn, which is no difference then what you currently must do when you die. So the little trickster did something, and RP would be created from it.

Easy recovery, is in the current system, and that would not change. what not in the system is the ability to keep things flowing, which flow is important to RP. it is kinda like your Rping and someone goes AFK for 5 minutes and everyone has to wait for them, it puts a hold on things, or can out right kill it.

Now least with movables corpses clerics meet folks get Rp from them asking them hey can you raise my friend? sure this can happen now but movable corpses greatly increases the chance of this happening.

It not just a realistic or handy thing, it is a RP thing. I just can't really discribe all the RP I have seen from meeting folks due to carring a body, it gives you something to do.

Here think of this. Sir john kisses barbie and goes off to battle the foul dragon with sir Ensure, Sir john promised to return at sundown, but there late what could have happend, oh wait she see's something alone figure that seems to be carrying something. Oh Sir Ensure must have fallen and sir john is carrying him back, but sadly she finds out it is not sir john carrying Ensure, but the other way around, she crys over the corpse cursing with the gods, pulls a dagger and does some speach, but luckily old cleric jimbo wonders by stays her hand, and touches the young barbie who always cursed the gods for taking her parents away the cleirc raises sir john, barbie struck by the clerics actions and that of his god befriends the cleric and wishes to follow the god that returned her love to her I have seen stuff like this happen alot not only is it fun to be in but fun to watch.

You can't really do that with a gravestone in a spawn spot of a dungeon many miles away with out her metagaming, nor when she see's the ghost of her lover run back to the dungeon to fight with his friends untill they win.

It just greatly enhances RP, and that is really why I am here.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Alright. My summary tactic again.

A description of a nicely-done final idea of this system:

1) Character X dies.

2) Character X chooses to either Wait For Help as normal, or to Shift to Fugue - in the latter case, being transported to a death area.
Assuming they Shift to Fugue (taking the place of Respawn)...
a) A gravestone is automatically erected where they were slain. (I've always thought these ephemeral markers were more Bindstone Magic.)
b) A container is automatically spawned just in front of the gravestone, containing the Corpse Object.

3) Player decides to either wait or respawn, sitting around in the Death Area.

Player chooses to respawn!

a) Player talks to death-person/object, and is respawned.
b) Corpse Object is destroyed (fades out of existence,) and an appropriate flavor-text is triggered, centered on the object (or object's holder).
c) Gravestone remains.
d) Character's body is transported to the Bindpoint, where it is restored and revivified (and standard death penalties are applied).
e) Character can choose to return to the gravestone, or wait, as normal.


Player chooses to wait!


a) Player chills out in the death area.
b) Characters Y and Z grab the body and boogie.
c) Characters Y and Z find a cleric, and the cleric Raises/Resurrects Character X.
d) Corpse Object is destroyed.
e) Gravestone disappears.
f) Character X is transported to the spot where the Corpse Object was, and Raise/Res penalties take effect normally.

[Gulnyr]

Ok the first part I don't get.

The first part is about that weird, white glow that respawned (and raised/resurrected) characters have.  It's only important because it makes people think that such characters are ghosts even though they aren't, and it brings up odd, semi-metagamey situations where people just walk up and ask, "What happened?" or, "Can I help you get back to your stone?" as if they were normal things to say to people in brand new, uninjured bodies.

but you talk of the downside of a easy recovery? if your in a dungeon with 6 people you die, often they go back and escort you there easy recovery, same as if they just drag your body along.

Not so.  If they go back to get you, then they and you have to make your way back to the place of death.  If they bring the body out, then it cuts out the extra danger of fighting back with a weakened character.  Trying to protect a weakened character is a source of good RP.  

Removing the body from where it fell reduces the cost of dying.  With the current system, you either choose safety, which costs time, or you choose speed, which risks another death and some XP.  Allowing bodies to be brought to safe locations removes the need for time and risk.

Also, if one of six died, and no others came close to dying, then the death was probably a fluke and the fight wasn't all that hard.  It could be claimed that returning to the death site or hauling the body out would both be an easy recovery.  But if one died and several others were seriously hurt, then it was a tough fight, and it can not honestly be claimed that it would be just as easy to return to the site of death as to return to wherever the body would be taken.  The current system has a higher average difficulty.

Your not going to escape folks doing easy recovery.

That's true.  It's human nature to try to find exploits and weaknesses, or, to say it with a positive spin, to seek advantages.

least with them having the body, it keeps a person out of the dungeon unless they all go find someone to raise them.

Why should they be kept out of the dungeons?  Isn't it the choice of the player whether to put his character into danger?  And why should they have to find someone to raise him?  The bindstones are a very integral part of the world, and everyone knows that when you die, you'll be brought right back to the one you are bound to.  The stones do the raising.

In addition, there are a lot of people who play here who have limited time to dedicate.  It's fantastic to consider hauling around carcasses and imagining the RP that can come of it, but a lot of people aren't going to want to waste the playtime dead while other people are RPing.  Being dead is being dead, which is a serious damper on roleplay.  As long as it's an either-or system, great, but if you must wait for help or a raise/resurrect, then it's going to seriously hurt and upset a lot of players.  I haven't seen it suggested that way explicitly; I'm just saying.

Evil villian takes your body and wishes to raises you and then wishes to hold you for ransom. See the worst thing that can happen is someone stumbles on your body, and hides it but the forcing a respawn, which is no difference then what you currently must do when you die. So the little trickster did something, and RP would be created from it.

RP involves people interacting.  If someone hides a body and then leaves so that someone else has to respawn, that is griefing.  If someone camps a body to threaten or moves a body to extort, that is griefing.  If these sorts of things are set up ahead of time in tells, that would be different, but it's not spontaneous or a guaranteed chance at RP.  Maybe the other player doesn't want to RP being extorted.  That's hardly the sort of thing real people get to decide to avoid, but, as cool as Layonara is, it's not real and there are rules against griefing.  Also, except for hiding the body, these things can be done with the current system with a little imagination.

Easy recovery, is in the current system, and that would not change.

Like I said above, it's not as easy now as free body delivery would be.

what not in the system is the ability to keep things flowing, which flow is important to RP. it is kinda like your Rping and someone goes AFK for 5 minutes and everyone has to wait for them, it puts a hold on things, or can out right kill it.

I think having my character's body hauled all over for five or ten minutes would be a pretty big kill to the RP, too.  Playing a dead guy isn't very hard, but it doesn't offer a lot of opportunities for RP.  By respawning, I can make my way back and rejoin the others, thus keeping the flow in the direction we were going, rather than the whole party changing direction so that now everyone is bothered with bringing my character back to life rather than exploring that cave or whatever.  There is flow in both systems.  The flow does not come from the system but from the players and their imaginations.  

Now least with movables corpses clerics meet folks get Rp from them asking them hey can you raise my friend? sure this can happen now but movable corpses greatly increases the chance of this happening.

I agree that it would.  The current respawn system can, has, and does lead to RP by allowing the respawned character to ask for help, though, so it isn't without the opportunity for good RP.  It also has the advantage that the previously dead guy is now actively RPing rather than just being hauled around as luggage waiting for the other characters to find a Cleric.

It not just a realistic or handy thing, it is a RP thing. I just can't really discribe all the RP I have seen from meeting folks due to carring a body, it gives you something to do.

I don't doubt it.  It's just my opinion that it's a lot better to play a living character that's weakened temporarily than a dead one being hauled around for an indeterminable amount of time.  In a world with a choice, I'm going to respawn nine times out of ten because I'm really not interested in waiting for other people to finish playing with my character's corpse when I could be interacting with people myself.

[darkstorme]

It can use the bind system, we used your starting location or you bind spot, and players had the option of binding themselves to any safe location. be it there house, a inn, so we had it working pretty good on the bind location part. So it works very well with bind locations.

While I think there are possible benefits to the movable corpse system (though I'd agree with Gulnyr's detractions), I wouldn't agree to a change in the binding system.  For one, the current bind system has a lovely story behind it, of ancient spells woven into the talismen that are the bindstones.

Similarly, being allowed to choose your bindspot feels very much like a "save point", which, in turn, smacks of metagaming and breaking RP.  If there are objects that can tie into your soul and pull it away to safety before it's forever lost, woven by ancient magics... that's fine.  If you can just say, "I want to appear here when I've made my way through the darkness beyond death.".... I don't see that being quite as.. well, believable.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

I proposed a way to have both systems work in tandem, above, that I believe addresses all of the concerns here apart from the body-snatchers griefing deal.

What do all sides of this discussion think of that? *Points up.*

[Tialle Dianesis]

I think being able to carry the corpse just adds more to the immersion of the world. It doesn't really alter the death system in anyway and the option to wait as a dead person is optional. You can still wander back to your grave as a "ghost" the old fashioned way. About the subject of hiding someone's corpse and holding it for ransom, unless I misread, I'm pretty sure Joyrock was just using that as an example of a RP opportunity. Even if someone chose to cause grief to another player by hiding the corpse, the dead person can still wander back to their grave site. *shrugs* No big deal.

[Joyrock]

was not talking of changing anything with the current bind stones, they work they do there thing and there setup like that for a reason.

here the thing, you carry a extra 160 stones, walk at a very slow pace and do a dungeon, carrying a body does not make it easier trust me I have played on a server that used it for along time. there more threat with one guy moving slow getting swarmed and not being able to back off the mob fast enough for fellows to heal because he moves slow.

Trust me it makes recovery no easier. You know what the only real problem with movable corpses is? is someone hiding it. but then the only thing it forces you to do is respawn, which since your were alone then you probly would have had to do that anyway.

Movable corpses help, in groups or with a friend. and then with your lone friend carrys you, he probly risk's his life very much for having to carry you back, because we will probly be walking pretty slow.

Now with people not having alot of time to play or wait that fine you still get the option to just respawn, I think somewhere you missed something on the matter.

[Gulnyr]

here the thing, you carry a extra 160 stones, walk at a very slow pace and do a dungeon, carrying a body does not make it easier trust me I have played on a server that used it for along time. there more threat with one guy moving slow getting swarmed and not being able to back off the mob fast enough for fellows to heal because he moves slow.

Trust me it makes recovery no easier.

This can be countered by your own statement:

Well there way around the weight, like I often kept a mage spell handy that was not very useful, polymorph self. Umber hulk form can carry alot. I used it just for carrying big heavy fighter classes out of the dungeon.

In other words, there is a built-in work-around (aka exploit).  Not everyone is a mage, of course, but they aren't exactly rare, either.

And in this quote...

Ok give a yes or no if this will ever happen so I can find out if I am wasting time playing here, because I can't play with the current death system. I can't I keep trying but I can't. I lost 3 soul strands at level 5 in one day, I only died 3 times.

I was asked how is the movable corpses a need? this i show, because I can't play with the current unrealistic can't move the corpses system of DOOM.

... I can see how you may have posted while you were upset, so a lot of emotion got put into it, but what you're really saying right there is that you want recovery to be easier because it's frustrating trying to return to a gravestone in a hard-to-reach place, and being able to move bodies to safer locations would solve that.  I can sympathize with that, but honestly, it has nothing to do with RP.  Just because Layonara's system is more difficult doesn't mean it is broken.  The system here is not objectively better or worse than other servers' systems; it is just different.  

I can understand that hauling a heavy load and trying to stay alive could create a lot of drama and the potential for RP.  But RP comes from the players, not from the system.  RP is what you make of it.  At least one person is going to be left out of a body-hauling scenario, though, which is why, in my opinion, respawning is a better option.  Everyone can play then, rather than having one player wait for other people to play enough that her dead character can be brought back into the game.  Your mileage may vary, and one over the other is a matter of pure opinion in that regard.

Now with people not having alot of time to play or wait that fine you still get the option to just respawn, I think somewhere you missed something on the matter.

I included that to be complete, not because I thought anyone was suggesting it.

I proposed a way to have both systems work in tandem, above, that I believe addresses all of the concerns here apart from the body-snatchers griefing deal.

What do all sides of this discussion think of that? *Points up.*

If it were created so that there could be no easy grave recovery, I probably couldn't complain too much.  To be specific, it would have to be built so that a person who chose to wait and then decided to respawn would have to return to the original point of death and not just to the body's new location.  So the choices would be that any respawn would require the character to wait out the reflections or return to the original death site, and any wait would require a raise or resurrect from a Cleric.  Just returning to the body in a safe place is too much of a Get Out of Death Free card.

To add to something Acacea said previously, but from a different angle, Clerics ready to raise people on every street corner like pawners would be excessive, I think.  It shouldn't be too easy to find an NPC Cleric to help.  

On top of that, the deity relations are an important part of the world.  Not every temple (with a qualified Cleric) should automatically be willing to raise just anyone.  Personally, I think it should generally be limited to only Allied and Friendly folks who should be raised.  Neutral (the deity relation, not the alignment) is kind of a toss-up, depending on the Church.  Some of them may ask, "Why not?" while others may ask, "Why should I?"

I can imagine that a lack of a convenient NPC could lead to a lot of PC Clerics getting tells.  "Hey, Joe died. Can you meet us at Corax to raise?"  I guess that's not a huge problem, but it makes me feel the same way un-roleplayed cross-continent party invitations do.

To summarize and quit babbling, I think there is a lot more to consider than just who will script it and where to plug it into the module.  Any system has to fit the world, and there is a lot of work to be done on the sides to make things fit right, like the additional scripting for NPC Clerics because of deity relations, which NPCs are actually high enough level to actually raise anyone, how much it should cost...  Who knows what all needs to be done?  It's a lot of work, and I'm not sure it's that big a deal that we don't have movable corpses.  Some people don't like it, but you can't please everyone.  

Put it in or not, y'know, but don't make death mean less than it does now.

[Laldiien]

Put it in or not, y'know, but don't make death mean less than it does now.

 
 I would tend to agree, as I feel death needs to be painful. It also needs to be a learning experience. There is nothing written that requires a player to return to the place of their death; they can sit and reflect on tactics, drink the pain away or OOC'ly, log off and do something else for ten hours.
 
 If I understand the the "dead" player would be sitting in a room, waiting for someone else to fix their situation by dragging them to a cleric. So from an RP stand point, that person is now completely isolated. With the current system, they are reconstituted at their bindstone, and have the option to determine what happens next, be that pray at their "grave" or wait it out.
 
 Me, I'd be opposed to changing what is working, and working as intended.

[ycleption]

Just as a tangent,

Probably half of the time I die, I recover naturally; sit around at stormcrest or wherever and RP. For character reasons, constantly running back to the grave is not always as appropriate as meditating on the nature of death as a way to heal the soul.
Very often, Drexia helps players back to their grave, it's a great way to meet newer characters, and intiate RP. The realism of being able to drag a corpse aside, The current death system is a very RP friendly system. Some people may not choose to use it that way, by logging off if they die, but that's their choice.
A movable corpse system could be a lot of fun, but I honestly like the current system. No death system is going to be ideal, because there has to be a balance between making death to be taken seriously, and making it too onerous.