# Why Permanent Death? LLMS index: [llms.txt](/dvw/en/llms.txt) --- Players are against PD because they don’t want to die. Although some socializers wishing to flaunt their loving and caring credentials might disagree, players in general don’t care if someone else dies—they just don’t want it to happen to them. Because no one wants it to happen to them, it doesn’t happen to anyone. So everyone is happy, right? For a time, yes. Then, the fact that the whole experience is vacuous begins to nag at them. Achievement—and with it a sense of personal advancement—can come in two ways in virtual worlds, neither of which occurs without PD or some equivalent. Characters can either advance gradually via a series of small actions done well, or heroically through single, life-changing events. Without PD, “small actions” are steps on a treadmill and “done well” means you move slightly faster than people who have “done badly.” Heroism is no such thing—it’s just another example of a “small action.” This is the root cause of the dissatisfaction that many players of non-PD virtual worlds develop. Players play virtual worlds to explore and celebrate their identity. The undertaking of courageous acts, whether for gain or to help others, can make highly significant contributions to personal development. It’s the uneasy realization that actually these acts weren’t as courageous as you thought they were that can cause the problems. Note that it’s not the immediate thrill that’s important. Fights in EverQuest wouldn’t necessarily be any more exciting if death really meant death. It’s in the rationalization where it differs. When failure at an action means oblivion, you can say more about someone who attempts it than you can when all they’ll suffer is a wuss-slap. The difference is of immense importance, because they’re not only putting their tangible character on the line, they’re putting their nascent identity on the line too. People may not want to undertake such risks. This is fair enough—bravery doesn’t have to mean stupidity. In a PD world, players assess the chance they’ll escape with their lives: If it’s too low [^86], they’ll pass. In a non-PD world, players don’t want the risk but still want to perform the action. The penalty for failure is therefore lowered to acceptable levels. Even stupid players won’t lose their characters. Failure may be annoying, but it takes more than that to make success heroic. Acts are only heroic when there is a significant, perceived chance of real loss and no easier alternative. The following acts are not heroic: - Standing in the way of a runaway cat. (No chance of real loss.) - Walking across a minefield you didn’t know was there. (No perceived danger.) - Swimming across a crocodile-infested river next to a bridge. (Brave, but unnecessary.) Putting PD into a virtual world does not make people heroic. It does, however, ensure that those who talk heroic are heroic. The designers of virtual worlds can make all their players immortal, but they can’t make any of them heroes. Only players can make themselves heroes. If they later come to realize they’re not the heroes they thought they were, disenchantment sets in. The most compelling reason for having PD is that it makes a virtual world meaningful in its own terms. Players can always construct meanings for activities in their virtual world, but these are not intrinsic to it or (crucially) to the real world. Without PD, a virtual world can still be real-world meaningful, but in external contexts only (for example, it’s a dating agency). Virtual worlds are about identity; if you can’t lose something, you don’t value it; therefore, you can never value your identity in a non-PD world as much as you can in a PD world. This is less fierce than it sounds, in that immersion to persona level can provide the external context that makes a virtual world meaningful (to the immersed player); it’s just harder to reach that level of immersion in a virtual world that doesn’t have PD. Meaningfulness is the fuel that powers the engine of identity development. It helps you get where you’re going. Without it, you either have to freewheel (non-PD) or get out and push (role-play). Pleasure only works if there is pain against which to compare it. For many players, the virtual world is the pleasure and the real world is the pain; these players don’t want to experience pain in the virtual world too, hence the issue of consent is important. However, withdrawing consent also withdraws meaning—not just from the withdrawer, but from everyone else, too. It violates the “no easier alternative” requirement of heroism. Mechanisms to prevent this aren’t hard to propose—a simple level cap for immortal characters would do it—but the problem is that many players won’t stand for it: They want meaning without consenting to what’s required to give it to them. If the virtual world can’t provide it, they have to provide it for themselves. Is it surprising that they often end up dissatisfied? You can see their point of view, of course. As far as they are concerned, they are role-playing a hero in a virtual world built for heroes [^87]. Heroes are special people who don’t get killed, ergo their character shouldn’t get killed either. Players may be nobodies in real life, but in virtual worlds they’re somebody. In the Gilbert and Sullivan musical The Gondoliers [^88], there is a celebrated song, “There Lived a King.” It tells the tale of a monarch who, determining it to be unfair that he can drink Rhenish wine while other people have to drink toddy, promotes all his subjects to the highest ranks. The kingdom swarms with lord chancellors, bishops, ambassadors, prime ministers, dukes, field marshals, lord lieutenants, admirals, and party leaders. The result isn’t hard to predict: In short, whoever you may be, To this conclusion you’ll agree, When every one is somebodee, Then no one’s anybody! If everyone is a hero, no one is. This argument is very pessimistic. It suggests that everyone can’t be a hero even if they do heroic things: Everyone does heroic things, everyone becomes a hero, heroism is commonplace, therefore no one is truly a hero. The meaning has been stripped by its ubiquity. Heroism does have a saving throw, though. It’s true that if everyone were a hero then no one would be. The thing is, everyone can be a hero, just not at the same time. [^86]: To enhance excitement and reduce the incidence of death, the actual risk of PD is generally lower than players estimate it to be—that is, favorably “unrealistic.” For example, although a dragon will always beat a newbie, higher-level characters might be able to survive more often than they would against a “real” fire-breathing lizard the size of an apartment block. [^87]: This isn’t true for all virtual worlds, of course, but it is for most game- oriented ones. [^88]: William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, The Gondoliers or The King of Barataria. London, Savoy Theatre, 1889.