Frodo Didn’t Have a Rez on Mount Doom.

There’s a thread over at the MMO Round Table on death penalties. Wizzel of Wondrous Inventions posted a nice bit focused on XP debt and alternatives.

“Take the case of the average MMO player. He is grinding to the level cap [...] He probably dies [...] To recover from the experience debt incurred by the death, he grinds some more. Therein lies the rub: it is simply no challenge, much less fun, to recover from death by doing exactly what one was doing beforehand.”

XP debt is a fairly benign death penalty, but as Wizzel points out, it misses more interesting alternatives.

Wizzel goes on to express a preference for item loss.

“In an MMO that has no penalty for dying to another player … there is often little positive reason for killing another player-character beyond the sadistic thrill [... but] item loss both serves as a penalty for the loser of a particular encounter and benefits the winner. [...] It is that risk vs. reward dynamic that keeps players motivated to try new things and gives death the potential to be worthwhile.”

This is where I have to disagree a little. Item loss is only slightly different than XP loss. Excepting the slight probability of taking back what was looted, you still end up grinding to recoup your loss.

Balancing risk and reward is difficult. At least for the grief-prone, PvP attacks are directed against those known to be weaker. In an asymmetrical competition, the stronger aggressor has typically a negligible chance of death and therefore a lower expected loss ( P(Death) x Loss ). For the very weak (new characters), even the loss of a minor item can be a substantial setback.

I haven’t yet seen a convincing approach that successfully balances risk and reward. Rules can be and have been implemented to govern who can attack whom: such rules restrict player choice (bad) and are often fertile ground for exploit (even worse).

The quote from Wizzel’s post that I liked the most is: “Frodo didn’t have a rez in his group when he climbed Mount Doom.” But Frodo also didn’t die. Not once!

The “death mechanic” in MMORPG’s is just a metaphor for failure (and only bears a fleeting resemblance to it namesake). As a metaphor for failure, it’s boring and adds nothing to the story or world. I’ve blogged the topic before. But let’s look at it from a different perspective. What alternatives to death might Tolkien have used if he’d designed a MMORPG?

Late, Not Dead

When the old Willow Tree defeats Merry and Pippin, Tom Bombadil rescues them and takes them back to his home for some feasting. Rather than failure equating to death, Tolkien occasionally rescued his hapless players ‘deus ex machina’, annoyed them with silly songs and delayed them somewhere nearby for a banquet. Realistically, it’s no worse than an extra half hour’s grind.

Players like freedom of choice. Our little group of hobbits could have called Tom an annoying fool and left at any point. Instead, they stayed. As a reward, Bombadil taught them how to summon him in times of need: a sort of one-time-use special power.

Later, the Nooblets … erm Hobbits … summon Tom to their aid in the Barrow Downs when they were at peril of having their souls sucked out (or whatever it is that Wights do). Nobody likes wasting a rare and powerful single use ability, so this variation on the failure metaphor carries a bit of sting. Still, it beats a naked corpse run to the Barrows.

Failure is its own Reward

Tolkien’s approach isn’t to equate failure with death and punishment. After rescuing the Hobbits, Tom gave them each swords from among the Wight’s collection. Later, the enchanted swords were critical in slaying the Lord of the Nazgûl.

What if Bombadil hadn’t rescued the Hobbits: would they have selected the right swords from among the barrow’s contents? Why is it that every mission requires the group to clear the zone or die trying? Why not build the occasional quest where failure is required to receive the greater reward. The only way to ensure selection of the correct swords was to fail and call on Tom’s aid.

Not Just a Flesh Wound

On Weathertop, the group is attacked by the Ringwraiths, Frodo is critically hit and incapped. Frodo doesn’t immediately respawn at his bind point. Nor does he drop a little bag of gold. And the Nazgûl did not get loot rights. Perhaps if the Witch-king of Angmar had played UO he’d have looted the One Ring.

Instead, Frodo was out of the game for a while. None of this “60 seconds and you’re back up” crap: he was out of the game for some time.

I’m sure players would be up in arms if they had to sit out of the game for extended periods. If Sigil were asked how to make being incapped for extended periods ‘fun’, they might add some sort of ‘resist poison’ mechanic … perhaps you’d have to manually make your heart beat and your lungs breathe. Not the approach I would take.

Instead, I’d suggest the game permit players to bring alt’s along. The spare character would follow as pets (accepting commands and helping in fights). When one toon is down, you’d switch to your backup.

(Aside: I suspect Samwise Gamgee was Frodo’s alt: the two were virtually inseparable. Myself, I would have brought another fighter, not the mule … maybe Frodo was expecting more looting opportunities and wanted the pack space.)

Poor Frodo spent a lot of time playing his alt to rescue his main after Shelob’s jab on Cirith Ungol. But it’s a win-win approach. Failure has some sting and the player stays in the game.

He Who Runs Away

After Frodo was mortally wounded, he was taken with haste to Rivendell for a cure, with the Ringwraiths in close pursuit. Glorfindel arrives to help.

(Aside: Who picks a name like Glorfindel anyway? That’s just asking for the wrong type of attention. I suspect Glorfindel is one of Bilbo’s alts: he did have a thing for elves and suggestive names).

But anyway, the great elf-lord Glorfindel (who once slew a Balrog) doesn’t engage the Nazgûl in combat; first, he attempts to evade them and speeds Frodo to the Ford of Bruinen.

Evasion and escape are important mechanics that Tolkien used frequently. Twice in Khazad-dûm the group was nearly overwhelmed but escaped.

In other games, if you draw a little too much aggro the party is wiped. In LotR, aggro volume is carefully managed: just enough to stress the group without causing a total wipe. And there’s always an escape route.

But In The End

Tolkien didn’t entirely shy away from death. Gandalf died slaying the Balrog, but luckily had a self-rez handy. Good thing, the peak of Zirakzigil would have been quite the corpse run.

Borromir’s death was far more interesting. Seeing his party in trouble, he invoked /sacrifice. Think of this as a powerful AoE taunt, with a permadeath kicker. Believing a group wipe was inevitable, Boromir chose to draw all aggro and help his team escape.

What a great mechanic. In every group there’s always somebody that wants to role-play the tragic hero. Give them the chance!

Sadly, it was a wasted attempt as Merry and Pippin were captured anyway. But they weren’t killed. They were trussed up and carted across Rohan by the Uruk-hai, with the remainder of the Fellowship (their alt’s, perhaps) in pursuit.

Occasions of failure are a great opportunity to spawn related and personally interesting side quests. What could be more meaningful to players than rescuing their own toons?

Conclusion

It’s clear to me that death should not be the over-used metaphor for failure that it is. Always give your players the chance to run away and try another day or another way.

When defeat does occur, use it as an opportunity to reward your players with interesting side quests … and what could be more interesting that rescuing your own alts from a bad situation.

Perhaps even reward failure as if it’s the preferred outcome: not every mission has to end with the players clearing the zone.

Finally, reserve death for those rare and special circumstances where it has the greatest impact on the story that players experience.

Epilogue

Despite really enjoying Lord of the Rings, my memory is particularly bad. Add to this the conflicting accounts of the book and the recent movies, and I needed a plot refresher. Thanks to this guy for the LotR summary.