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

[Richard Woolcock]

Stephen Zepp wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
>   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.
> >>
> >
> >What if the emphasis was reversed?  Bring the political/social/economic
> >game to the forefront.  Relegate the combat/quest aspect to a minor
> >sub-game.  What if NO experience or advancement were given for combat?
> >What if combat were "realistically" risky, as opposed to the "player
> >assumed to be hero" of many muds?  Would reasons for combat then naturally
> >evolve out of an economic/political/social situation?  I'm not talking
> >about a mundane economic game where the player is engaged in RL-like
> >activity in order to survive, but more a fantasy economic game where the
> >player's character has similar advantages as the hero-centered combat
> >game.
> >
> >--
> >Jon A. Lambert
> >"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant" - Plato
> >
> >
> 
> (*gulp*) umm, at the risk of sounding self-righteous or conceited, that's
> exactly what I'm doing.  Combat is to be _avoided_, and it the last refuge
> of the incompetent.  It's deadly.  You don't heal on your own ( well, over
> a LONG period of time ).  Dying is death ( well, reincarnation/resurrection
> aside )...you are now a spectre, and can only minimally interact with the
> physical world.

I am trying to make combat an option (and certainly not a requirement).
However, I'd like to take the emphasis off killing, while still making
combat reasonably common.  Suppose as well as the good old fashioned 
'kill' command, you also had commands such as 'bruise', 'hurt', 'cripple',
etc - meaning that you would stop at that point.  Thus if a mob attacks you,
you might just beat him up (or get beaten up), and as long as nobody pulled
a knife (which would be VERY rare for mobs to do), then death would never
really become an issue.  Experience points for combat would of course be
non-existant, unless you were a hitman/assassin/bounty hunter type and even
then you would only get exp for taking out a specific target.

Remembering my WoD theme, killing would then become a mainly political
thing - hire an Assamite to kill Bob the Nosferatu because he's blackmailing
you with some information he gathered about you, kill the Prince because 
you know your best friend would become the next Prince, kill your sire 
because they are planning to use you as a scapegoat.  The only senseless
killing would occur when members of warring sects (Camarilla and Sabbat, 
Vampires and Werewolves, etc) meet up - and realise who/what the other is.
New players would probably be fairly unknown, and would thus be less likely
to get picked off by this, whilst famous/infamous individuals would be
recognised on sight (even if you hadn't met them before - my player 
recognition code could deal with this perhaps by comparing the viewers 
'Politics' knowledge against the other persons status or fame level).

This, combined with the loss of Humanity that comes with killing, should
make each fight a memorable occasion, rather than a vague memory of killing
a few hundred mobs the night before...

KaVir.