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Character death
When is it fine to murder a PC?

When do you, the players, usually excuse or reason a murder?

I've witnessed plenty bland RP in my time where players have just murdered another character for looking at them funny as opposed to beating them. If your character is a badass that's fine, it doesn't mean they're suddenly a murderer.

A reason I can think of is when a character doesn't take repeated warnings over a length of time for their actions.

Any other way is harmful to the game and we shouldn't just be murdering without exploring other avenues of fuckery.

You combat oriented oldbies give new characters no chance. Is it because you are afraid of losing your time and effort invested? New characters are too. Over and over because they can't amount to nothing.

Let me hear the communities motivations.

I have recently seen a worse-than-usual rash of immies choosing to engage in violence, threats, inappropriate sexual advances, and general belligerence who have put themselves into situations where other players are left with few other options but to kill them. If this has happened to your characters repeatedly, you need to realize that you can't play an aggressive badass right out of the gate, especially if you're new to the game in general. Withmore is a hard, unforgiving place and people protect what they have very fiercely.

Second, beatings only work if they work. In the handful of recent immy executions I am aware of, it was repeatedly made plain to the immies involved that their behavior was not going to fly, yet they chose to ignore the warnings. You can only suplex the same person into the same trash can so many times before you hit your limit. Players who find their new characters frequently dying violently should seek help in putting together a character concept that eschews violent or aggresive behavior, at least until they've learned how to navigate that side of the game.

This thread is great... evokes a lot of thought.

Killing is a fucked up thing to do, it's something that scars your character's life forever (unless a psychopath), even for Withmore standards, unless they've done it over and over and grown desensitized at the act of putting a bullet in someone's head. But it is ultimately up to your discretion when to kill someone. Determine whether them cloning (or not) will be advantageous to you, or if you want to let them live so they can remember who's in charge.

Paraphrasing Slither, it's important to be true to your character, but it's also important to not be a dick. Unless you have a very good IC reason to kill someone, i.e., they robbed you, killed one of your previous clones, killed one of your friends, framed you, plotted against you to fuck you over (most people who do this aren't newbies, so killing them wouldn't be as a big demotivator), it'd be a good idea to consider how to stay true to your badass roots without making the game un-fun to newer players, who realistically wouldn't stand a chance against you in combat. For example, instead of killing them, you could give them a beating, or hand them over to gangers, or make them owe you money, or humiliate them, or ask one of your underlings to beat them up to prove themselves, things that can create more RP than just sending them to the death funnel.

For instance, I've frequently opted to not kill characters who have been at my character's feet, in critical condition, with a gun pointed to their head. Instead, let them go with a few broken bones, a few scars to tell, and a lesson learnt, giving them, the player, a chance to come back, to plot their revenge, to try their luck against me. Their character has been humiliated and brought to the bottom of the barrel, but they ultimately get a chance to remember what happened and act upon it. It's just how I personally approach it, sometimes.

Other times, you just have to kill them, because they've gone too far in pissing you off and it's the only reasonable IC thing to do. For new players that reroll over and over and over I just think it's their fault and they should try a different approach rather than coming straight out of the gates claiming to be the toughest motherfucker in earth... but that's up to them, isn't it?

I always seem to see this from time to times on muds, where we say that the mud environment is a harsh place and that it depends on the character. However, I think Sindome has this sort of idea, that everything is a cause for violent action as if even the small suggestion of rudeness constitutes us killing a person. I personally play social characters usually so I don't run into this very frequently, but I think that the idea that killing a person for rep only goes so far. it's like saying man I'm scary, but eventually y it just becomes the norm. I have this ooc thing that goes off in my head going. Oh, there's that PK char. he's not really scary, or intimidating, he's just going to get pissed rapidly and off me or someone, and that'll be that. Eventually I just get bored and they become something I tolerate. As for players getting offed within the first week? It's pretty clear what you shouldn't do. There is a saying that I've stuck to with story events in other places. Be cowardly, be cunning. If you want to play center stage? you are going to die. It's fine if you choose it, but you can't complain for the death.
What if you -don't- choose it? What about those unavoidable situations we find ourselves in, thinking 'Oh no. Not this'

Is it worth pursuing RP that others force you into by belittling your character, where you could teach them a lesson, but something out of your control along with weak reasoning IE. 3rd parties. gets your character murdered.

Ask GMs for assistance in chopping limbs off if immies ignore less permanent damage. Never enough of that shit going around.
Or just people in general, not just immies. RPing that kinda injury is pretty fun.
Indeed! It is. I've had a characters arm hacked off in the Park once. Fun times. That kind of RP is good for the game. It gives the affected character on the losing side something to work with. Killing straight out doesn't.
Death in Sindome is unavoidable... No matter how powerful you are, you will die, or you've already died. Sooner or later. The theme revolves around death, despair, backstabbing, crime, oppression, false appearances, and the looming risk of falling down and losing everything. You will get robbed and you will get killed. If you find yourself in a disheartening situation that makes you think 'oh no, not this again', you have to embrace it because it's the theme of the game. And then learn from the lesson, move on, and prevent getting stuck in that situation again by all means necessary.
There was once a my character beat down another and amputated their arm. Then had a medic escort them off. The result? The player called contacts and shot up my pc and his affiliates. That was some fun RP that ended in my characters demise. But it was worth it. Victim walked around with a mechanical arm for a few months.

Give. Don't take. Act accordingly.

Ask yourself, is it necessary? Is there no other way? Do they deserve this? Would letting them live and sending a message be better?

'Killing straight out doesn't.'

I'm just going to say it. You're completely wrong.

A death that you can rebound from doesn't mean much in the scheme of things.

You wake up. You're disorientated. You have to scramble to find out what happened, to recoup your losses (which will probably make you RP harder). Your friends and associates get the news. They have a mixture of feelings. Grief, shock, surprise. They roleplay. If further hostilities are expected, now you have to make preparations. Your associates might even make countermeasures on your behalf.

Stories can begin with a death.

Yes, sometimes smashing a small character really is pointless, sometimes a death really is just... a death, and doesn't lead to all that much. But a lot of the time, stories begin with being killed. People act like being killed robs them of roleplay. No, it creates it throughout the whole game.

I'll go one step further. You need to be prepared to die. Sometimes you have to die to stand up for something that your character believes in. Sometimes you have to die to be true to your character. You have to be prepared to put their lives into the hands of others. We have a concept here called the Cyberpunk Exit. Murder and death are parts of the theme. Embrace it. You're approaching death with an attitude that is only going to lead to disappointment and resentment.

I don't personally think the question is what the theme of the game is. We all know what the game is. I think it is more what constitutes that whole yes we're a badass gangster motherfucker, and oh we're just codedly strong we're bored lets go kill a person, it's the only thing we really do within our months of sitting about and putting points in. I mean really that's probably the worst part of death here really. There's not a lot of RP leading up to it. There are times where I get about one scene out of a whole day in a game that expects me to roleplay, and meanwhile I'm not progressing. Then a character kills you and says, yeah you pissed me off. It doesn't make it meaningful it just makes it another thing to have to deal with. So I understand the frustration. That being said if you've played here a while? You know that this is sort of how SD is. Love it for what it is, and try not to get killed. It's why I try not to do combat just because I know, it's going to always end up having me feel the same way about it. not really needed, and not really story driving for me. That is just my opinion. A lot of people totally feel different on the subject. And that's why they come here. :)
"I think it is more what constitutes that whole yes we're a badass gangster motherfucker, and oh we're just codedly strong we're bored lets go kill a person, it's the only thing we really do within our months of sitting about and putting points in."

I have never, ever, ever seen this happen.

Everyone's experience is different. I have had negative experiences like that. But I've been here a while. So it's probably different how I look at this.
Oh, half my post didn't get posted. Weird. That one line was not my whole thing. Ugh. Anyways. I further went on to say that it's kind of a matter of perspective on behalf of the player. Like if you're going to kill off a player make it meaningful. If it's not. like you're just like yup, gonna kill you. then there's no story imo. Sheesh.
I basically meet the definition of oldbie and I will say this. Yes, we don't take no shit and yes, we kill newer characters.

However it's not as simple as that. If my character is known for being a badass (the few that there are). It is entirely unIC for them to take a verbal beating from a new character with Uterine fluid still behind their ears.

I can't speak for other players but I personally will actively avoid killing newer characters because I -want- new players to stick with the game - but I'm not going to do something entirely out of character and break immersion just because a new character wants to be the little badass that could.

Imagine it like this - if you're a fresh college grad and you walk into a new place pretending like you're gods gift to process improvement, absolutely everyone will hate you and your career isn't going anywhere fast.

Find some friends, get some flash together and then when he/she's forgotten about you, make their life hell. Heck just wait for the time when they over-reach in dealing with their own enemies and then stick the knife in their back.

Having an enemy can be fun if dealt with in the right way, and that's kind of the whole reason we're here.

When it comes to the choices long-standing players make in a game like this that's held on to what it is for so astoundingly long, I would almost always agree with the decisions they make. You don't play a game like Sindome as long as some people here have and never realize you need to pull in the good new players and hug 'em close and make sure they wanna stay. Text games are a bit of a dying breed and even with Sindome's rather impressive player count, you always need all the new blood you can get.

So, if a fresh immy is getting their stomach lined with teeth, it's probably because they're just being a chaotic element for the sake of being chaotic. The gang and corporate structures need destabilizing (that's what keeps stuff fun, fresh, and unpredictable!), but you can't be a lone actor hitting it mindlessly with a bat and not expect it to melt you in turn. Not everything needs to be a long con, but violence should be well thought through. I absolutely do not believe that long-standing players are going around turning immies into origami completely unprovoked.

In the end you reap what you sow. I can't think of a time where a character, especially new character's street interactions in the Mix, have been killed by other PCs without ample warning that they're getting in over their heads or that they're messing with the wrong people or that they're taking an action that will lead to reprisal.

And speaking from some experience, killing new characters really isn't fun. I play this game to have fun. I don't think any oldbies or combat oriented players would pick killing a new character over doing something more creative unless the character has crossed that IC line.

Oh and I agree with urgent's lone actor sentiment. Personally, I love the players who choose their characters to be chaotic elements. They keep thing's fresh. But they have to be smart about it to get away with their hijinks. This is where GM fiat could also play a role, protecting those newer characters who are doing crazy stuff from retribution. There's plenty of nasty NPCs, and PCs for that matter, for these players to seek out and ally themselves with. It all comes with being smart about the chaos.
Vera wrote:

"I think it is more what constitutes that whole yes we're a badass gangster motherfucker, and oh we're just codedly strong we're bored lets go kill a person, it's the only thing we really do within our months of sitting about and putting points in."

I have never, ever, ever seen this happen.

I second this.

I have been killed several times and though there's 1 time which could look like it's random and no reason for it, that doesn't mean there wasn't a reason.

Non-related examples:

You could be doing nothing or being friendly, grumpy, etc., but there's something you're doing that's annoying the hell out of a person or persons. You happen to be pushing someone's buttons and have no idea you are. Maybe you did something for someone else (Dave) because Dave was annoyed at Jack. You kill Jack or disrupt a plan of Jack's. "Out if the blue" Jill, who you've never heard of or never met, kills you.

It looks random.

In reality, you've been annoying the hell out of her by your thoughts to others on SIC and you had no idea Jill was a long term friend of Jack. Jack was the last straw.

Or

Example:

You've been annoying someone unintentionally by some of the things they've heard from others. It doesn't mean it's true, but it pushes the character's (maybe even the player's) buttons. They come to kill person A but you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Opportunity has shown itself and they think, Why the fuck not?

They kill you.

They'll kill their original target later but you were unlucky right now.

--

Just because you keep your head down doesn't mean you aren't pushing buttons and annoying the fuck out of someone or messing up someone's day who has a connection that comes to kill you.

Yes, I do think beating someone up and creating fear / respect instead of killing them can work well but it also depends on if they've heard about you.

Maybe they've heard you've been threatened before and it did nothing and you're still a mouthy bastard. Why bother beating you up and threatening you if it'll do nothing?

I know that it would work at least temporarily on one of my characters plus a handful more and *has* been done. It made for some brief but heart pounding "Oh shit" moments.

Olbies do not kill people (particularly new people) lightly.

Alliances are important in SD and if someone kills you, though frustrating, that means you've done something to annoy or piss them the fuck off.

Congratulations.

Whoops, let me clarify:

I know that it would work at least temporarily on one of my characters plus a handful more and *has* been done.

**I know that it would work at least temporarily on one of my characters plus a handful of other people's characters, and *has* been done.