The suicidal character

[Slowness_Incarnate]

I'd like to honestly be rid of about 10 of my characters right now. I do not want them to perish for space to make new ones, but because it would give me time to focus on the few characters of mine that I think have worthwhile lives.The rest are a chore, and only remain alive because of the people on the other side of the characters they interact with. I've been trying for weeks to think of ways to kill them, or put them into situations where they will be killed within reason of their personalities.

[SumBum]

It is difficult to let go of chars when you know others depend on them. I've got at least one now who just goes through the motions.

It's also difficult for the players who know their chars will lose friends/loved ones because the other player is letting go. I try not to harass people for it because I go through those times too. At the same time I want to tell the other player how much I enjoy their RP etc. Sort of a "I love that char, hate to see them go and wish you would reconsider, BUT I understand..." Maybe some people would play a char more if they knew how much it was appreciated.

[SekoETC]

"Assisted suicide"

It would be cool if it was possible to plan outside the game to have your boring character kidnapped or robbed or killed. Now this is technically a CRB so disclaimer: don't try this at home, but if it was done to end or change the life of someone boring whose player wanted it to happen while avoiding irreversible damage on other characters, I think it might improve the game rather than cause harm. Others might need to get hurt as well to make it look like random violence but there could be an OOC agreement to avoid killing people who hadn't requested their character to get killed. It would be most easily done by hitting the primary target first so that the attackers would be tired and causing less damage when hitting other people, and if an unintended target got enough damage to bring them in danger of getting killed, a reserve player could be told outside the game to keep their character asleep rather than getting involved. If this character was the oldest or carried the most visible wealths, it would even look realistic to target them first. It could even be a double deal where both the player of the victim and the attackers were looking to get their characters killed. Attackers would target a town, only kill or kidnap the character who the player had requested to be culled, and then not play too hard to catch so that others could extract their revenge on them and get the stolen stuff back. The players of the chasers wouldn't know it was an ordered hit so they would be angry and bloodthirsty rather than OOC:ly grateful that the killers helped someone out of boredom.

This is kinda like how in freeform chatroom rpgs, people would decide OOC if an encounter is going to lead into someone's death because it's more of a major issue when characters have complex personalities and back stories written, rather than being spawned as a tabula rasa.

Even in-game, good players have a tendency to avoid killing active and well-played characters as long as they're not acting completely unreasonable, but if the other option is to lose everything and become a slave, I assume it's too much to handle for most players, even in cases where the character could expect to get released or be allowed to escape eventually. I suspect it might be because people are thinking OOC "I built this character, I gathered all his/her wealth, why should I let these other characters get it just because they have the upper hand?" and fail to realize that if you die, they're going to get it anyway. While if you stay alive, you'll have a cool story to tell and might be able to either get your old stuff back or rebuild wealth after being released/escaping. If you lose almost everything, you'll be appreciating what's left so much more.

[phoenixannwn]

Curious: If you new a player that wanted to have their character commit suicide, what advice would you give them?
If the character wanted to commit suicide, what advice would you give to their player as far as RPing?
What I'm saying is, we've all had that one character ours depended on just up and die out of nowhere, leaving us in the dust. So what advice would you give to those players to...I suppose let you down easy?

[SekoETC]

I'm not sure if I fully understood your message since it's somehow difficult to follow, but if someone wanted to kill themselves, it might make sense to go through stages like people do in the real world, first you're depressed and then you get happier as you have made up your mind and have a plan, you know it's all going to end soon, so you start giving away your items (or loaning them away, knowing that they wouldn't have to return them since you're gonna be dead), and hugging people and saying that you love them. Also if it's a character that tends to have sex then if you're going to have sex one last time, it's likely to be extra special since you want to take everything out of it. I had a character feeling sure she was going to get killed, so I think she gave a boat to someone and had lots of sex and was generally feeling more alive than in general. It's normal to start acting out and it might even lead into someone realizing you're planning to die and talking you out of it.

But if it's about a non-established character who doesn't know anybody, you could just have the character turn more and more depressed, start sighing, forget to pick up / farm for food after running out of old ones, or better yet, if there's a newspawn or a hungry traveler, give your food to them as an act of charity and forget to pick up more. Then the character could start cutting themselves if it fits their style, but it should be done in a place without witnesses, because doing it in public is just a cry for help.

[phoenixannwn]

Sorry, I'm on a caffeine high.
Anyway, yeah, I was just curious as to how it could be done well. Last time, when I was trying to get all of my characters killed before I unsubbed (I just didn't like the sudden heart attack thing, for some reason), I was having issues with finding good ways to kill them.
And I have a character that may or may not fall on the chopping block soon, but for now they're a sort of Eeyore.

[Ryaga]

Problem with a character limit is that it wouldn't address the actual problem, it'd just lock the people on the bad end of it out of the game.

The problem is that Cantr is so ridiculously stagnant in some places. A combo of everlasting old people, and a damn-near unlimited supply of food and other things.

[Mr. Bones]

Leaders holding up the entire town because they wouldn't wake.

Turn over the keys. Not that difficult conceptually, yet no one does it, ever. Really, is it easier to kill off well established characters than hand over a few keys? Apparently so.

A woman in her fifties says to you: I need to sleep for a long time. Take my keys and look after the town in my absence, and please keep me fed.

I bet those words have never been spoken before in Cantr. I don't understand, and I never will.

I had a leader that had keys to four different towns before I hit the big X a year ago. I had so many keys that handing them to the guy would have taken forever, so I went into a building only I had a key too and threw them all down. Afterward I just gave him the one key to that building, gave one last stump speech, then took a "nap".

[SekoETC]

Yeah, that sounds like a good way to exit, although hitting the X doesn't really count as a suicide.

If someone wants to kill their character but wants the corpse to be found, it's good to leave the door open or go outside before the final blow/before the death tick hits after you've gone 100% hungry. I had a guy kill himself with a sword soon after it was changed so that suicide that way became possible even for those who weren't exceptional fighters, and I thought the damage reduction would be linear but it wasn't... Took them years to break into the room and find the body.

[Cdls]

I have one character who ever gets it in his head to die off, he would get all the keys he could and melt them into iron simply because he is a total asshole.

[Taralyn]

I have had a leader of a town character have to give up keys before napping because RL drama's meant I had no idea how long I would be gone for, as it turned out It was many months and all my characters died..... Was sad but RL is important too and I have many other responsibilities.

[BrentW]

So I read every post on this thread the solution is very simple it seems. Give stuff away. A bit of a communist idea but whatever. A newspawn lets say wants to make a smithy give him the stuff for it tell him go for it build it. If he sleeps to death find some one else who wants to do it. If your a killer or pirate you must have lots of extra weapons and stuff laying around I did In FTO give that stuff away if they die oh well more for some one else to do the same. The problem I keep reading about is simple. The Older Chars have and control almost all the good size towns and supplies.


So they can A give stuff away or B and this is what I would love to do. is simply ship newspawns and younger players away. It reduces wasteful population but workes in the end. Find an empty or almost empty town maybe a place that was once importent drop a bunch off with tools weapons clothing ect you get the point oh yea and gut the town before hand to supply them with the stuff they need but nothing extra. It will make them work and stay awake. If you send 20 people in if 10 die you still have a strong ten awake hard workering people with a goal left...so send them more.

Or you could just set up a penal Colony for the less then nice population you may have laying around bothing you and every one else.

A simple plan not cheap not easy but it's a good goal over all for the older chars. Gives them a reason to stay awake and gives newer chars and newer players a chance to be a bit more up on the ladder.

[Bowser]

So I read every post on this thread the solution is very simple it seems. Give stuff away. A bit of a communist idea but whatever. A newspawn lets say wants to make a smithy give him the stuff for it tell him go for it build it. If he sleeps to death find some one else who wants to do it. If your a killer or pirate you must have lots of extra weapons and stuff laying around I did In FTO give that stuff away if they die oh well more for some one else to do the same. The problem I keep reading about is simple. The Older Chars have and control almost all the good size towns and supplies.


So they can A give stuff away or B and this is what I would love to do. is simply ship newspawns and younger players away. It reduces wasteful population but workes in the end. Find an empty or almost empty town maybe a place that was once importent drop a bunch off with tools weapons clothing ect you get the point oh yea and gut the town before hand to supply them with the stuff they need but nothing extra. It will make them work and stay awake. If you send 20 people in if 10 die you still have a strong ten awake hard workering people with a goal left...so send them more.

Or you could just set up a penal Colony for the less then nice population you may have laying around bothing you and every one else.

A simple plan not cheap not easy but it's a good goal over all for the older chars. Gives them a reason to stay awake and gives newer chars and newer players a chance to be a bit more up on the ladder.

Problem with that plan is that the main town is a main town because of the resources and the people. Others do not want to "man" a close town no matter what you give them. Guarding the limestone or whatever is not enough to make a town work. I have more to say but no need to go into detail. Doesn't work.

[BrentW]

I never said guard. I am sure there are useful towns empty if FTO had it then Cantr must. I could always ask around but whats the point. Give them the supplies and thats it. Either way more people have supplies to do things with sort of like Trickle down Economics. But that works.

[DylPickle]

FTO is a very young game. Cantr has been around for a much, much longer time. Most places of value are inhabited already. There are big, scarcely populated areas that have some places of value, but the logistics of their location make trade very, very hard from there.