[MUD-Dev] Guilds & Politics [was Affecting the World]

[Marian Griffith]

On Sun 07 Dec, Mike Sellers wrote:
> At 11:57 AM 12/6/97 PST8PDT, Marian Griffith wrote:

> >I agree that not every player may enjoy a game where they have to do
> >some work to have their characters survive. But there may equally be
> >players who do not mind and enjoy the chance of variety and roleplay
> >it brings to the game. Different expectations I guess.
> >If a game starts to develop in this direction  it will cease to be a
> >kind of mud though  (in the traditional sense of the word)  and this
> >may confuse players. It does not mean it can't be a valid foundation
> >for a game.

> I'm not sure how you mean it would cease to be a mud in the traditional
> sense.  The ideal, I think, would be to allow people to play
> "traditionally" (questing, killing things, the usual), with the
> political/social/economic cycles as background: make them the game if you
> want, or ignore them if you want.

My thought was that the more 'extraneous' things you put in a game the
less focus there can be on the traditional mud activities: killing for
experience points and equipment.  If you raise food to such importance
that players can actualy starve to death (or even die of malnutrition)
then the players cannot just ignore that issue. And allowing the play-
ers to ignore additional subgames can only go so far. Why would you be
a carpenter if there is no pressing need for the services of one (i.e.
the players  can easily ignore that part of the game  if they want to.
This seems to me to be related to the problem that jobs like that of a
cleric are highly illogical on most muds. They are healers but have to
kill to play the game.  If healing is to be a viable role to play on a
game then other characters can not simply ignore that aspect. They may
find that the wounds their characters suffer do not automatically heal
over time and may in fact get worse, to the point of killing them.
Any subgame must, to be viable within the game, affect the players, to
a certain point. It should not be possible to totally ignore that part
of the game. If there are politics then they -must- affect all players
and it will be up to them to deal with it. But those politics must not
run the game.

>  That's what we tried to do with the
> dabbling bit of politics in M59 (the Duke and the Princess); it worked
> pretty well this way, as far as it went.  

I don't know about that scenario. Is it well known or would you care
to tell me (and the others?) about it?

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey