[MUD-Dev] Re: Character evolution

[Jeff Kesselman]

At 09:41 AM 8/27/97 PST8PDT, Raph wrote:
>The reason why we chose the witnessless (is that a word?) route is 
>because we are using it primarily as a method of social control.

We are as well, but a different kidn of conmtrol I suspect.

AThas is suppsoed to be a harsh worlkd, the closest exampel migth eb the
wilkd west.

We dont want killers bragging abotu their killings in public or doing such
thinsg in the middle of 'civilizer" areas btu in fact we WANT them to be
makign the wilderness more difficult.

Now i shoudl poitn something out though.  Yo ucan loot a body when its
unconciosu withotu killing it. Mureder is a MAJOR infamy hit, while assualt
and robbery a relatively minor one.  In thsiwe a remimicing what ther eal
world does fro the same reasons, we dont want someoen whose goal is robbery
to tunr to mass murder just to avoid beign witnessed.
>2) Better method: every bit of NPC conversation actually exists in 
>multiple forms. The NPC will say "I don't understand" in very 
>different ways based on their intelligence, their current happiness, 
>and the reputation of the person they are speaking to. So a stupid, 
>unhappy baker who sees a known killer may grovel, whereas a more 
>secure NPC might be defiant or insulting. There's 275 strings for "I 
>don't understand" alone...

Heh.  yeah I see why you instituted (1).

One rule of judging and building riddles I thin kapplies here-- if it seems
REDICULKOUSLY obviosu to you, then its at abotu teh rigth doifficulty level
for your players.  Yo ubring a lot of unconciosu advantages to the problem
they don't, amogn other things you already KNWO whats important and whats
distracrtion.

In film mkaing (my other degree0 thsi translates to the Rule of 3.  "Say
anything improtant 3 times. Once subtly to foreshadow (abt 5% of the
audiance will get it then), once more obviously (about another 20% will get
it then) and  last hit them over the head with it (the final 75% of the
audiance will get it this time only.) An exampel of a movie that "said it
twice" was "The Dead Zone". As a result, not a single reviewer understood
the movie..  (theya re ALWAYS in the last 75% of the audiance.)
>Exactly. There's also the factor that if you are using this as a 
>method of protecting players and to some extent punishing "killer" 
>behavior and encouraging alternate forms of play, you have to be sure 
>that it blankets enough cases to serve that purpose.

Note Raph that yo uand I are the only two active posters who seem to
believe some social control ois necessary. Inetrestingly, we are also the
only 2 workign on comemrcial projects.  (Even though theya re very
differnet kidns of comemrcial projects.  Your approach is world simualtion,
ours is massive pen and opaper style RPG.  ocne tehy both get otu tehre and
settled down it will be inetrestign to comapre users and how the games
develop.)

JK
Jeff Kesselman
Snr. Game Integration Engineer
TEN -- The Total Entertainment Network -- www.ten.net

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