Do permadeath guilds exist?

I'm a mostly PvE player on EU servers and tend to stick to more casual content, but I was wondering if there are any guilds around that specifically play with permadeath rules? I don't play all my characters that way – I have characters to do occasional WvW/PvP/challenging content on, but when I make a new character I prefer death to be an "Oh shit" rather than a "lol oopsie!" moment. Adventuring, to me, is so much more fun and immersive when it feels like it has actual consequences, so it'd be really nice if there are any groups of like-minded players out there to have that shared experience. If such things exist, I'd love to join – and if not, maybe we can create something from interested parties here.

Unfortunately I don't have an answer for your question, however I do have questions regarding your "rules".Are you saying you delete a character if they happen to die in OW? or do you have to wait for a res from another player?If you are deleting characters, do you clear the inventory (sell/salvage)?I'm unlikely to stick to this myself but for some reason I'm curious about exactly what you do.

Happy to clarify! I don't have really hard-and-fast rules, though if a guild did have some I'm sure I'd be willing to adapt. It tends to be that once a character dies, it really breaks my immersion and will to play them, so unless they have a very practical or strategic advantage (world and/or story completion, storage, age to get birthday gifts) it's better for me to start over.

I usually delete a character whose death count exceeds 0, so it doesn't matter about waiting for a res. If I log out when downed and they're 'defeated' when I log back in but still have a death count of 0 and no damaged armour I currently count it as a very narrow save – more a loss of consciousness than true death – but obviously that only works in PvE anyway and makes jumping puzzles extra treacherous. Particularly ones with gliding disabled.

If I'm deleting characters I usually do sell/salvage the inventory, but since I use permanent harvesting tools on whatever character I'm currently playing I will always save those, plus inventory bags, ready for the next character. I also keep any ascended trinkets they may have been using, but there's usually still a financial hit involved because anything I get by selling/salvaging is nothing compared to the investment I'll have made while levelling.

I also tend to steer clear of the same name again, though I have reused names in the past – it's just rare that I would lose a character and then immediately remake the same race/class/name combo. At the end of the day, my guiding principle is that death feels like death. It means world bosses/champ soloing feel like genuinely treacherous and exhilarating fights, I favour more survivable builds, and I also like to revive others where and when it's possible. That's kind of why I think a guild geared towards that sort of play would be really cool; even otherwise 'intermediate' content would have to be much more planned, cooperative and supportive to ensure everyone got in and out in one piece!

@Manpag.6421 said:If I log out when downed and they're 'defeated' when I log back in but still have a death count of 0 and no damaged armour I currently count it as a very narrow saveThis reminds me when my brother shut the PC/console down when he was going to lose at some game... It bothered me a bit, but I got used to it in the end.Interesting challenge though, definitely more difficult than playing without buying anything from the TP (totally doable). I guess I would never play an elementalist with such rules, or a thief in perma melee range. And I'd probably run away from all the meta events/bandit champions.

@Urud.4925 said:This reminds me when my brother shut the PC/console down when he was going to lose at some game... It bothered me a bit, but I got used to it in the end.

It's not a good habit, and one I'm trying to curb. Sometimes it's instinctual, but it's not in the spirit of it and I'd rather lose a character 'honestly' than have them in limbo because they kind-of-died-but-not-quite. I don't want to be the kind of player who disconnects when things aren't going their way, even if it's not in a competitive mode. In fact, I'd say that's another benefit of playing in a like-minded group: it disincentivises that, because if you log out to save your own skin that aggro will go onto your ally until you're all either dead or logged out.

I think it forces me to learn each profession's mechanics and skills quite well. I played an ele for quite a while recently, and found that actually they aren't too bad at surviving as long as the skills are cycled right and you make very good use of Vapor Form when downed. Similarly, at least thief does get a shadowstep away and a stealth skill while downed.

As far as running away from meta events is concerned, metas no but bandit champs yes, I will avoid them unless I have a really good counter-build. Even the legendary executioner isn't too bad as long as I manage to be on the outside of the bubble with a ranged class. Metas are fun and introduce an element of risk when a lot of other situations are fairly easy to survive in, though there are certain ones I do tend to avoid from experience; Seige Master Lornar, for example, can be particularly lethal for the level of the map he's in.