(no subject)

[worldlyafflictions]

Who: pep!pep!
Where: Dorms and elsewhere
When: Day 52

[Busy busy]

Comments

2/?

[we_meet_again]

The first one is probably the most difficult. We've discussed trying to penalize revives somehow so that people don't take them so lightly.

We could try charging points for revives, the way sensitIV does for healing, but we run into the problem of who do we charge?

The victim can't pay until after they're revived, so they could always just choose not to pay. In the event of murder, how on Eos do we get the murderer to pay for the death they caused? Asking the victim's friends or unitmates to pay for them feels like holding the victim hostage. (Though, I guess, the potential pressure unitmates could put on each other to avoid that inconvenience could work in our favor.)

We also talked about shaming the community so the penalty comes in the form of reduced social standing. Shaming a victim for a death that wasn't their fault, or a death that happened in an extreme situation, is really discompassinate and honestly, I don't like it. Shaming the one who was at fault for the death has the potential of rewarding bad behavior with attention, and may have the opposite effect from what we're aiming for.

Another point I've heard is that the people who are the most inclined to murder aren't the ones who are likely to be discouraged, no matter what we peps do. Bringing their victim back to life is going to be more inconvenient for them in the end, so ensuring their murder doesn't stick is its own deterrent. This one could go either way -- either it works, or it sets off a chain reaction where people just murder each other back and forth and we have to clean it up.

One last option I can think of is an appeal to the community. Nearly everyone I've met so far is kind and doesn't want to cause harm, if they can help it. If we make a PSA that says something to the effect of "yes, we can and will do it, but it's sad and sometimes traumatic for us. Please don't take revives for granted because this is a thing that hurts us." Then we can at least appeal to the kindness of the community, and the social pressure it can leverage.