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

[coder at ibm.net]

On 26/11/97 at 04:22 PM, Mike Sellers <mike at online-alchemy.com> said: >At
09:26 AM 11/25/97 PST8PDT, Jon A. Lambert wrote:
>>On 23 Nov 97 at 10:51, Marian Griffith wrote:
>>> On Mon 15 Sep, Jon A. Lambert wrote:
>>> > On 12 Sep 97 at 14:21, Marian Griffith wrote:
>>> > > On Thu 11 Sep, Jon A. Lambert wrote:

>I think maybe I've posted on this before; I've definitely spoken in
>various places on the importance of player government.  This allows for
>people to play a variety of sub-games if they choose, or to ignore the
>whole thing almost entirely if they want.  It also provides a great,
>non-wiz way to address various IC greviances, and allows you to put
>stealing, PKing, etc., in your game without making others effectively
>defenseless from them (or defenseless without deus-ex-machine solutions,
>such as we see in UO).  

>A canonical example involves a government for a city or city-state,
>comprised of a Mayor, Judge(s), Sheriff, and Guards (all PCs).  Briefly,
>it goes as follows:

While barely in this camp, a while ago I proposed a simple legal system:

--<cut>--

Were I to do a legal system I suspect it would be something as follows:

  "Crimes" would be deliberately vaguely defined.

  The system would erraticly and unpredictably cycle between
ultra-strict enforcement and ultra-relaxed enforcement of crime detection.

  An increased percentage of guilty verdicts would tend to sway the system
towards stricter enforcement.

  Users can report crimes to the system.  

  Depending on the above, not all reports would be acted upon.

  The system would internally detect crimes.  This would take place via
mobiles or other similar coded systems viewing a crime in progress or the
results of a crime.

  Again, not all would be acted upon.

  All crimes would be recorded and tagged against the assumed perp (DB
rollbacks are wonderful).

  Upon a crime handling being started, the assumed perpetrator would be
charged with all the unresolved and unhandled crimes against his name.

  Crime handling would be specific to various societies. 

  Societies would be user defined, but system administered (membership
primarily).  

  Upon a criminal handling commencing, a random selection of the currently
logged in members of the society in question would be tagged as jurors.  

  The jurors would be told that the system will teleport them to a court
room at a pre-defined time (30 RL mins later) in the future to stand
judgement.

  The juror list is openly published at the same time.

  The accused is informed that he is accused and when the trial will be.

  Jurors may sell or transfer their juror position to any other society
member, including the accused, prior to the trial.

  Death or non-attendance of all jurors prior to a trial defaults to a
not-guilty verdict.

  The case of all the jurors being the accused defaults to a
non-guilty verdict.

  Non-attending jurors are tagged with the crime of non-attendance, and
may or may not be called to stand trial for that crime.

  The courtroom consists of a room containing four areas:

    1) A exitless pen which contains the accused, suitably immobilised (ie
he has no control over his character other than speech).

    2) An open pen marked "Guilty".  

    3) An open pen marked "Innocent".

    4) A free space surrounding the guilty/innocent pens.

  The guilty and innocent pens each contain a single button marked,
"Verdict".

  The courtroom has no entrances and no exits.  There is no possiblity to
view an in-progress court case unless one of the jurors brings in a remote
camera object.

  Shortly before the trial commences all jurors are so warned.

  Upon the trial commencement all jurors are teleported to the open free
area of the courtroom, and the accused is immobilised and put in the pen.

  Jurors are teleported with everything they happen to be carrying at that
time.

  There are no controls and no supervision of what happens in the
courtroom.  

  Crimes in the courtroom are not recorded.
    
  The verdict is determined by all surviving jurors gathering in a single
pen, guilty or innocent, and the verdict button being pushed.

  If the verdict is innocent, the accused is freed, and the jurors
returned to the locations they were summoned from.  Any dead/injured
jurors remain dead/injured etc.  EQ is left where it was at the instant
the button was pushed.

  Any EQ left in the courtroom is given to the accused.

  If the verdict is guilty the innocent pen dissappears, and the guilt pen
is renamed "penalised".  The accused's EQ is made available to the jurors
to do with as they wish (ie everything he is carrying or in a location he
controls).  If one of the crimes is deemed suitably serious, the accused
stats are made available to the jurors for editing as they wish.

  Guilty processing terminates when all surviving jurors enter the
penalised pen and the button is pressed.

  Any EQ left in the courtroom when the button is pressed and all jurors
teleported back is given to the accused.

............................................

It should be amusing at the least, wonderfully chaotic at best, and
intensely unfair and primitive at its ideal scene.

--<cut>--

It shares many deus-ex-machina characteristics, most significant being
that the server is now the arbiter of what specific crimes will be
prosecuted, when, and which will be ignored, and for how long.  The lack
of player control over any aspect over the actual determination or jury
selection process could also be significant in this regard.

Ignoring the fact that I *really* like the ignobility of the process, I
think it could be tweaked to become something more fitting your scope
without losing its baroque underpinnings.

Something like the following:

  Take the above exactly as-is.

  Also implement the Rank Point system I just requoted a few messages ago.

  Allow players in established positions (purchases with RP's), to "bribe"
the justice system with further RP's.  

  Those bribes would be used to do one of:

    -- ensure character X is on the jury.

    -- ensure character Y is prosectuted.

    -- ensure character Z is not prosectuted.

    -- cancel a case already called (and jury selected).

  and would function as weights upon the function that determines each
case.  

  Add a multiplier to the RP's used in a bribe dependant on the source of
the RP's.  Thus Mayoral RP's would, say, be worth three times as much as
janitorial RP's in bribing the justice system.  Or, to get more
interesting, and as a balance for the increased power of players with
positions, fractionalise the bribery value of mayoral RP's as compared to
janitorial, ssuch that janitorial are worth more than mayoral.

  It would probably be worth implementing some sort of limits on what the
jury can do with the total sum of the accused's EQ, or perhaps a limit on
the quantity of EQ that the jury can affect which is in turn dependant on
the charges.

This allows players with the resources to get revenge, to get grievances
heard, etc.  It of course also heavily favours against the underdog, tho
suitable RP touches could outweigh that.

>The Mayor is elected by the people.  People vote for a candidate for
>their "home" town, typically the place their character began in the game. 
>A number of voting forms are possible; the one I like best is one which
>allows every character to throw their support behind whomever they like
>whenever they like, so you have no "voting deadlines" or polling booths,
>etc.  

I'd suggest using a variation on the Australian voting system wherein one
votes both for a primary and secondary preference, with the count looking
at both.  Winners getting their majority via the secondaries, but losing
heavily on the primary preferences are not at all uncommon.  Additionally
this largely removes the case of one "side" losing because it is
factionalised and can do a lot ot temper voting mood swings (arguable an
(un)wanted thing in a MUD).  

>No matter what form you use, this sets things up so that Mayoral
>candidates will need to spend money, curry favor with the populace, be
>well known, etc.  But it also means that the highest level character will
>not necessarily be elected, and in fact a solid player who doesn't do a
>lot of quests (i.e., is not super high level) could end up "commanding"
>characters who are much higher level. 

Of immediate question is how the Mayor (or whoever) enforces his orders
against noncompliance?  Nextof course is how the balance of duties and
responsibility maintains when players are logged off.  No Mayor, no judge,
no guards logged in?  Just some?

>Also important here is the fact that now there are official avenues for
>treating important social events such as marriage and divorce; and
>official recognition and avenues for redress for things like PKing and
>thieving (punishment left up to the Judge in this example, though that
>need not be the case).  

How would you counter the case of the accused being a member of a
"foreign" society?  Ignoring the political implications (insult to the
other society and its powers), should a judge of one society have access
to the particulars of a member of another?

Or perhaps should there be a heirarchy of judges, each mandating over an
increased region and only taking cases which don't fit in any lower
sub-division?

>I'll write later (whenI have more time) on the importance of "social
>ecologies."  Just as we have producers, consumers, and decomposers in
>biological ecologies, similar closed-loop cycles are important in online
>societies, even in games.  Many of the social dysfunction problems we
>have are because we do not recognize the importance and position of all
>the social ecological roles, and thus the game quickly moves to an
>artificial point of stability, rather than reaching some sort of
>homeostatic equilibrium.  

Or, as I've been calling it here on the list, the social predators and
their prey.  Heinlein's Dune Messiah can be particularly entertaining in
tht regard.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...