[MUD-Dev] Character evolution

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <33F6A84F.55E8 at dial.pipex.com>, on 08/16/97 
   at 10:28 PM, Richard Woolcock <KaVir at dial.pipex.com> said:

>Okay we've talked about the world evolving, but what about players? I
>have often thought about coding it so that players hair/nails slowly
>grow, causing them social/combat problems unless they do something
>about it.  Players would therefore have to trim their nails every so
>often, and get their hair cut (unless they wanted it long, in which
>case they would need to tie it back).  Shaving would be another
>option.

Adam W has raised ideas on this front afore, tho concentrating more on
recognition factors than the mechanics of change.  My view is that
this would be far more annoying to me as a player than any value
gained.

>Age is another factor that could be taken into consideration.  As
>your character got older, your hair would go grey - maybe fall out -
>and your skin would wrinkle.  You would start losing attributes and
>maybe pick up some mental conditions.  Eventually you would die of
>old age.   

Age I do track.  Essentially it allows for the ingraining of physical
habits and musculature (a body that has swung a lot of axes will tend
to be very good as swining axes, as vs a body that has spent its time
running), as well as giving a max life-span to the body.  I don't
enforce enfeeblement of bodies with age as its not a model I find
attractive.  I do enforce enfeeblement with accumulated (if recovered)
damage.  Thus a body which has been regularly severely injured will be
less able to operate, let alone recover, than a never-injured body.

>This is one of the reasons I am thinking of using my
>mudsex/pregnancy/ birth code for - so that players can 'prepare'
>their child (thus passing  on their skills and knowledge) for when
>they themselves die.  This would  effectively allow you to 'live
>forever' in theory, even though you would be living through several
>different people.  It would, however, require some planning by the
>player.

My character/body model is of course severely different from the norm. 
For me immortality is an almost automatic side effect of competance. 
Once basic competance has been acheived about the only thing that can
kill a character is a concentrated and sustained and extremely
competant attack by another player (or very rarely a mobile). 
Anything less that a near perfect attack, well sustained, will merely
result in a weakening, not a killing.  Such killings will very
literally be processes of dedicated, and well executed and planned
murder, and will be actively encouraged.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...