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Heroic Knight
 
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H (3/8/2008)... . Dying is good. Your character dying means you've won.
Not dying, or not having any death threats or attempts or at least no-one IC disliking it, means no-one really gives a toss about your character.
I don't know where the idea of "survival=won" came from - probably from some lesser version of lrp, such as 'real life' - but it's pernicious nonsense.
Thoughts?
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Prodigal
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| Suppose a decide to play a bank clark (in RC) at maelstrom. I have a background (passed over for promotion previously due to internal politics, then posted to this hellhole) personality (depressed and grumpy because of it), vices (drinks and uses mild drugs when his shift finishes to forget). It seems a valid interesting character to play that fits in with the setting and has a clear likely story arc unless fate intervenes (play out the degeneration into clinical depression and drug abuse). But it also seems unlikely that the character would be killed. A focus on being killed seems to relate to an interest with external rather than internal conflict, and with physical conflict as a narrow subset of that. It seems to dismiss other valid forms of coflict. It also dismisses roleplay intended to immerse within the setting and focus on the experience (e.g. playing a male tritoni, to experience a different form of gender relations)
------ <insert really amusing sig here>
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Prodigal
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I have had two characters 'win' LARP, one by dying and one by retiring. I don't think you can be said to have 'won' or 'lost' until your character's story is over - you might have a lot of little 'wins' from enjoying what you're doing, but I'd call that 'enjoyment' rather than 'winning'. So your banker would 'win' when they took their final drug overdose and everyone gathers around and reminisces, in a kind of 'we didn't really like him but we're a bit shocked that he's dead and now we feel all 'here-but-for-the-grace-of-the-gods-go-I' about it' fashion. Your male Tritoni probably wouldn't 'win' at all in the big, ending-is-win sense, but not 'winning' doesn't mean that you can't enhance the game and enjoy yourself playing them - LARP, like most RPGs, isn't (always) about winning.
You can win by retiring, too - you achieve your character's goal (mine was 'find the correct Devotion and do something glorious in support of it') and retire the character before it fades out into meandering tedium. Or you can find another goal and continue, but then it's just a little 'win' on the way to winning (or losing, if the story's cut short).
Maelstrom: Jessily the Wemic, previously Tourmaline of Weaver
CUTT: Kerriville the Ninth, previously Ref 07/08
EOS: Study the Venin
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Wag
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Nietzsche weeps!
Nath (3/8/2008)
A focus on being killed seems to relate to an interest with external rather than internal conflict, and withphysical conflict as a narrowsubset of that. It seems to dismiss other valid forms of coflict. It also dismisses roleplay intended to immerse within the setting and focus on the experience (e.g. playing a male tritoni, to experience a different form of gender relations)
Not 'winning' doesn't mean invalid. The character who spends all his time sitting in the woods talking to himself isn't invalid, but it's hard to view him as having had an impact on the game.
It's not clear what 'winning' means here, but I think the implication it's being able to say "My character definitely had an impact on/contributed to the game". Internal roleplay is something you can only evaluate personally - there's nothing wrong with masturbation per se, but don't expect other people to want to hear about it. You can always _claim_ to have contributed/had an impact - but you only can be _sure_ when you've motivated other players to come and kill you - there are other ways of destroying people, but few as unequivocal.
Marios
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Wag
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ChessyPig (3/8/2008)
You can win by retiring, too - you achieve your character's goal (mine was 'find the correct Devotion and do something glorious in support of it') and retire the character before it fades out into meandering tedium. Or you can find another goal and continue, but then it's just a little 'win' on the way to winning (or losing, if the story's cut short).
I do sometimes wonder if the rest of us should have stopped after the "something glorious" you mention. I remember being somewhat annoyed when you retired, but the resulting struggle for a new meaning and the very definite "lose condition" we hit a few events later after achieving that glorious goal-win kinda put it in perspective for me.
PD - Brother Farael of the Ordo Dictum Dominus
EOS - Some Raggard Scum, previously Some Arimin Scum
6P - System creator (now retired), Andrei Treune of Clan Suner (for the moment)
RL - Will Robinson
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Christopher Tookey's lovechild.
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"Not dying, or not having any death threats or attempts or at least no-one IC disliking it, means no-one really gives a toss about your character."
Either that, or they liked your character. That could be a win.
------------------------------
Eos: Diego Gatito - the worst ninja in the world.
Insurrection: Marcus de Selene - the worst price negotiator in the world.
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Heroic Knight
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This is suitably pedantic but I would say you can 'succeed' but not 'win'. Winning implies a loser but given everyone's operating on different timeframes, that doesn't seem right. But you can 'succeed' at something without someone losing.
I don't think it's about death though, it's about achieving character goals. So if my only goal is to, for example, get married and I do it, I could at that point choose to retire my character (go back to the old world and be the little woman or something) or to continue playing. But if I continue playing, I would need new character goals and as a married woman, these would perhaps not be things that applied to my character when she was unmarried. That kind of thing.
So yeah, it doesn't matter if you die or never die as long as you're fulfilling the goals you've set for yourself.
RL: Hayley
LT: Traxden of House Mortimer, Harts
PD1: Lady Rebecca Farnsworth of the Asilio Bussola
PD2: Strikes In Darkness of The Kae Ree Tribe
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Heroic Knight
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I'm not sure that you can win at RP. I mean, if you're playing a board game and you win, the game stops. Here, the game goes on after you've died (assuming you didn't blow up the world or anything...) I suppose that if your character does something so impactful that there is an IC legacy that would be cool, but shouty and obvious doesn't always mean good (and this is coming from someone who often plays shouty and obvious characters but is trying hard to do this less).
In RL, Not Dying is high on my personal agenda, and it is for most of my characters, so I try to avoid it, but I like playing people who have clear goals and strong motivations, which can sometimes put you in the way of other people's motivations (and pointy swords) Thems the breaks. I don't run onto the swords in hopes of a glorious demise though.
I always liked the Peter Pan quote "To die will be an awfully big adventure"
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Lions not lolcats
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Live roleplaying's greatest cheerleader...
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