...yeah, I honestly couldn't think of a better title than that.

Well, to the issue at hand. Allow me to set forth a hypothetical situation. Which I will not claim to be or not be involved in. :v

You play a character in an RP who holds a position of considerable power and authority. As it happens, another character, who is supposed to be a subordinate in a way to your character, is flaunting your character's authority and constantly jeering at your character and in essence warranting some punishment. Your character, as it also happens, is kinda insane and rather a brutal sadist. In character, your character's natural responce is to outright kill the character--with one catch. Just so happens you're not allowed to kill other characters without permission--because of their plot armour as PCs. It's 'godmodding', and the RPer of said character obviously isn't letting your character kill theirs, but continues to do things that your character, acting IC, would kill them for. What do you do? Doing anything BUT killing the character as punishment, which is what you, as your character's designer, KNOW they would do, would be contrary to your character's personality and purpose.

It applies to other hypothetical situations as well. How far are you willing to sacrifice your own character's intended personality in order to accommodate the RP? My personal belief is that you shouldn't have to at all. If another character does something they know is going to have consequences, they should have to live with it, or get a warning saying "No, really, if you do that, my character's going to kill yours" and give them a chance to correct it.

Anyway, my computer spontaneously started typing ridiculously slow, so I guess thats the end of my post. I'm interested to hear people's thoughts.

Moved this to RPG Design. Thanks.

Sorry. I saw similar discussion in the 'Discussion and Debates' forums, so I figured this also belonged there. Brain derp on my part. :v

It depends on the game and the players. That's all I can say. Games can operate on what I'll call the consent model and the automatic damage model. In the consent model, your character cannot be permanently, seriously harmed or killed without your permission. In the automatic damage model, you take whatever damage occurs regardless. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, especially depending upon the game medium. The consent model does not work very well in traditional tabletop games. There's already an ordered way for resolving conflicts and measuring damages, and everyone has agreed that this is the way conflicts will be resolved, so you can't just say, "But I don't want that critical hit to damage my character severely." It was rolled for fair and square.

The problem is, freeform games don't have that. It's just a bunch of people talking. You can't unequivocally say, "That definitely hit your character and definitely caused them this much damage." outside of really tightly constructed circumstances. These games simply operate on the honor system, expecting the players to be fair and realistic about what hits they do and don't take. Never taking damage is as much a form of godmoding as always causing it, and the consent model is not an excuse for ignoring ICA = ICC. It is not a get out of jail free card to waive all unpleasant consequences simply because you don't like them.

That said, having your character "outright" kill another is going to be godmoding in most cases. An attempt is not; stating that you have killed their character without giving them to ability to react to your actions generally is. Not being allowed to attempt to do something that's IC for you is something I find problematic, but not being allowed to simply inject a character death is something I totally get.

It also has to do with simply coming at it from a different mindset. Different players value different things. I'll quote Ewen Cluney (from Yarurki Zero Games) here: "I wonder if the fact that some people have expressed concern over that sort of thing [character safety] is a difference in subcultures... I suspect that relatively few indie RPG types would be too concerned about character safety, whereas from what I’ve heard of the freeform RP scene it’s of paramount importance to some people." If it's not something you like, find like-minded players (and they are out there; I've seen them), but you'll have to accept that it is one standard of play in the freeform community.