I'm starting a game up soon and the gist is that the players

>>55025429
You should probably read "Word Up" magazine. That'll probably help.

Digimon did this really well way back when. I would spend the first session introducing family and friends of the players. Showing the attachment with flashbacks of why they lovedthem in the past and maybe hate them for a moment but the loss of them and maybe never seeing them again. Then after a long journey with digital friends they lost they feel lots of time past that they could look over old interactions.

You could always do it the opposite way around. The players have been in the world for weeks, but in reality they've been in there for millennia. Their bodies have long since decomposed and their homes gone to dust. Is it worth staying in a fake world over that?

>>55025429
Make getting out of the game the goal.

>>55025429
>This amounts to pretty much "it was all a dream."
I honestly don't see how. They already know that it's a VR, right? They know it's not real. And their goal is not to die, because they know that even if it's a VR they can still die in it.

So that makes their investment in the story still valid.
And how time dilates does not really matter in this. I don't see this as particularly interesting reveal, but I don't find anything cheaty about it.

The problem with the "it was just a dream" thing is that it TENDS to retroactively devaluate the investment you had in the story. You thought the events matter, then BAM somebody says none of it mattered, or had any relevance - they just trivialized the whole narrative you've been through. At least sometimes (the whole "we hate the it was just a dream" meme is also overblown).

I don't see how this is the case. They wan't out because they know it's deadly, right? Not because they fear they are missing on real life outside?

>>55026610
Thanks for the insight. This helps a lot.

>>55026610
>>55026610
This helps a lot thanks.

My thought is though, that anyone who "died" was logged out and due to time dilation have not been able to log back in. So no one has died, but until you get out of the game you don't know that.

Does that devalue the whole thing? I don't know.

>>55027145
I think it would better now if you just laid out the whole ground rules of the game both as they are, and what your players know/think they are. Before my pills kick in, preferably.

So the idea is that if you die, you drop from the game instead of dying for realzies. But the players don't know that (otherwise, presumably, the'd off them selves immediately and just be done with it), and they won't know until they themselves find a way out.

So do the players believe that those who die, just really actually not-prending-die?

While in reality, the loser is just kicked out and now he is just hanging out around waiting for the few minutes pass till all of his friends are either killed, or find a differnt way out.

Am I getting this right?

If that is the situation, well then you kinda unfairly leading players into beliving the stakes are higher than they really all. I mean - your friend dies tragically and it's such an emotional moment and you woe yourself for ever to carry his legacy and then in the end it's just "dude, cheers, I was just sipping mayonese over here, while struggling through the depression and losing your faith for the final battle to save the word."
That... could come across a little patronising or cheap. Sometimes a valhalla-style meeting of all the great warriors can be a great thing. But here it sounds more like "it was just a bad day the arcade story.

I think it could devaluate deaths of the character, when you just learn they wre just disconnected, not killed. Unless there is someting even worse waiting on them once disconnected.

This is where I think your group mentality will play a of a role. If they take it like joke "Hey dudes WE ARE IN CYBERVALHALLA NOW and bring keggers, it might be fin.

If you have less "lets make the best of everything people", they might be feelin a bit cheaty.

>>55027333
You have it, essentially, correct. The GMs told everyone that if you could beat the end boss it would cut to credits and auto log them out. So the GMs went off to beat the boss and haven't been hears from in weeks. Now people are starting to play through the game to try to beat it and getting killed off, instead of respawning ,like they should, they're just gone. People are assuming its death but have no real way of knowing.

I'm worried telling the players if they'd waited, albeit for years and years by their perception, they'd have been fine and everyone else is fine too, really devalues the whole thing.

>>55027668
Drop subtle hints as time goes on.