So from what many people have seen, there has been a great deal of conflict surrounding the concept of remixing characters after death or inactivity. While this has only happened a couple of times, this is an important subject to discuss as I believe it negatively affects the landscape of in character interactions and the integrity of the site as a whole.
To my understanding, and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, a character remix is a new character created in the event of a character death that is similar in many aspects to the old character but with sufficiently different characteristics that define them as a separate person from the original. Now, this description of a remix is pretty vague as something being sufficiently different can mean different things to different people. In the case of this forum, there have been a few instances of remixing that have been argued as having set a precedent for future rulings on the subject. So before we get into why I see the current state of remixes as a negative influence on the forum, we should first discuss at least one of the precedents that have been set.
Now I don’t know much about what went down regarding this specific ruling as it happened before I was on this site, but from what I’ve heard and read a character named Seigi died to a plague during an activity check and when they returned they wanted to rp a very similar character. So in this case they were given the chance to create a jounin in a different village, with a different kkg, a similar appearance, and the same name. The caveat here is that the character that was created was technically the same one, but from an alternate reality, which leaves very heavy in character implications given the original character’s connection with Shimiko, who at this point is a major state actor. Something like this already borders on the line of ridiculousness to me as I feel it cheapens the interactions and developments caused by a character’s death, but given that the character died from an inactivity check rather than the actions of something caused in character, and given the original character made a solid three posts in its lifetime , it definitely feels like a more forgivable.
Despite this specific situation having some interesting personal plot implications for both Seigi and Shimiko, it sets a negative precedent for the site as a whole in that it allows people to argue that should be allowed to make characters that have builds and appearances that are very close to their original characters and that have close connections with the same characters as their previous ones. In the case of a combat roleplay death, this cheapons the narrative loss of that character to mere experience points, with the possible added bonus of some weird character interactions following finding out about this new character. Remixes of this nature are cheapened even more when there is next to no actual in character build up related to them, and they just appear with very similar IC connections, appearances, and abilities, creating odd logical inconsistencies IC.
The solution to this problem would be to make a rule that states that after a character dies, a new character cannot have the same appearance of the dead character, nor could they have any IC connections related to their previous character or their previous character’s own IC connections. This isn’t to say that they would be unable to have their character connected in some way to some of their previous character’s IC connections, but they shouldn’t be able to be like “Hey I know that Jim Uchiha just died in battle, but hey, I’m his previously unmentioned brother Bob Uchiha, pleasure to talk with you Larry Hyuuga. I know that you’re my brother’s lifetime rival who knew everything about his life, and even though he never mentioned having a brother in any form of writing related to his character, you totally have a plot interwoven with my character history.” Things like this are unreasonable to the other members of the forum and debase any semblance of continuity or loss.
Tl;dr - Character remixes shouldn’t really exist in the case of characters that die in battle or through IC means. The extent of a new character’s relation to an old one should be similar or exact same abilities, with most other aspects of the character being different.
Please feel free to share your opinions on the subject.
