What is DID, Dead is Dead? I have read about it.

Frustrating.....rewarding.....addictive.....painful and joyous

Have a read of page one of the DiD thread....says it all

DID = Dead is dead = Permadeath = Death in the real world.

When your character dies, you don't respawn. The game is over, and you start a new game with a new PC. Like Nuzlocke in Pokemon.

It's an acronym for a form of ritual maschism.

Erk, was I supposed to die when my character did?

.... yup..specially on Legendary ( not that I play that way, usually)

Yeah, some of us play a really hardcoe game.

No just act like you are in respect of the game. You're not allowed to play again, because a dead person couldn't.

Dead is dead is a playstyle which goes back to the days when we didn't even have a name for it (i.e., when "we" gamed tabletop RPGs way back in the 1980s). When table-gaming, the rule was simple: your character died? He / she / it was dead. Only exception was if a high-level cleric was nearby who could revive your character, or if you had a very expensive potion or scroll or whatever. But even then, there was a chance of failure!

Yes, this. I've played computer RPGs this way since forever.

In some of the old computer RPGs, like Might&Magic, you create a bunch of characters, and they are then available to be recruited to a party for the game. Those characters would be stored at an "inn" (your starting point when the game loads), and they would gradually get stronger and get better gear. With each session, you'd load a group of those characters and go off adventuring. As long as one member of the party survived, you could resurrect them with magic, or drag the "dead" back to the inn, where they could be resurrected.

I used to delete those "dead" parties from the inn, if all of them were lost during play.

To the OP, to simplify:

DiD, or "Dead-is-Dead," is simply a play-style where you don't reload from a save when the character dies, unless it was caused by a computer bug or glitch. You must start fresh with a new character, at the beginning.

One time, I played Diablo II on hardcoe (automatic DiD) and my level 50 something character lasted about 20 minutes after gooing to hard core. I never played diablo again, and that's been like three years ago or more.

This is a good simple definition. I added a short parenthetical in bold, which I think clarifies it a bit more that DiD also includes no save scumming for reasons other than death, like failed pickpocket attempt or an important NPC dies, etc.

In Robin Williams' words: "a strange sport, played by damaged people"

Seriously, it's a way to play a game. I may not agree with it, but I respect people's decision to follow that route

Edit: To anyone interested, here are some of this great comedian's http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330829/quotes

Some of us just basically lose interest in a character once it has suffered a "legit" death. It is annoying as hell, but hey, we all have neuroses.

I consider an "illegitimate" death to be: power outage, wife comes home just as I'm having an epic battle, dachsund starts barking madly that Mommy is home, startling me and causing me a split-second of delay at just the worst moment and leading to character death . . . there are lots of examples that are less 'grey' than that one, although plenty of others that are more arguable/debatable.

For example, my current character, about 5 levels ago, he ran over to the Companions to join up, mainly just for the free junk and the use of Eorlund to temper gear (available thanks to a mod called "Loot and Degradation"); I generally dislike most of the Companions and secretly harbor a desire to off all of them eventually (except maybe Ria, she seems nice . . .). In the "testing you out" sparring with Vilkas (one of the MOST annoying of all Companions) something glitched out (probably one of my mods that affects NPCs. I drew my weapons either too early or too late, and when he started swinging, he wasn't play fighting and killed my toon in about 3 or 4 hits. This I considered a completely "illegitimate" death as it was never meant to happen that way, so I reloaded and consider myself to be morally upstanding as far as any DiD code of conduct and suffer no sense of regret.

However, the previous toon (which was largely the same build, but the 2nd one slightly 'improved' pattern of development), when the Bandit Chief at Redoran's Retreat cut him down in like two hits at level ~25 or so, that was legit, and it was over. My own complacency, lack of preparation and attention caused the death, which most certainly was "meant" to be a real threat in situations like that, so that character's files were deleted and a new one started (actually I like to keep the first save or so when I'm still in the "Alternate Start Prison" and after I've configured all my mods in MCM and setup my characters phenotype, but basically: go back to Level 1 with all starting abilities).

I 'aspire' to play through a character to the point where they say to me "Okay, I've done enough adventuring. It is time for me to retire to my villa in Markarth {or whereever}" and then feel truly satisfied that the character fulfilled all its potential in game and never suffered an 'legitimate' death (or rather, never suffered an "illegitimate respawn.") After many years of playing TES games, I have never had this happen, and only come close with characters which I managed to make stupidly OP, and which consequently just became boring. In those couple cases, "I, the player" told the character: "Sorry, but it is time for you to retire."

In sum, every character I've ever had prolonged interest in has been killed legitimately, and I then consequently lose interest in playing them. It isn't even a matter of "adhering to a Dead is Dead ethos" per se; I just plain lose interest in them once they have been killed in game due to no one's fault but mine.

Yes. This is why I play this way. You see your character killed, and it just feels somehow "wrong" that you reload, and go on as if nothing had happened. Without risk, the character stops being "real." Reloading after death just reminds us that "it's only a game, and nothing that has happened here really matters."

I make a lot of different characters, and each follows a different path in the game. I see them all as individuals. Most of them are dead-is-dead, although not all. At any given time I will alternate among as many as five different Skyrim characters, an equal number in Oblivion, and two or three in Morrowind.

There's generally one "immortal" character going in each game; these characters provide me with personal continuity. Oddly, I can't recall the last time one of them died.