[MUD-Dev] Problem Players [was: Guilds & Politics ]

[Matt Chatterley]

On Tue, 9 Dec 1997, Koster, Raph wrote:

[Snip Zoran's example]

> The above sounds wonderful, given that you have email registration, 
> characters who never log out, etc. These provide important "identity 
> tracking" which permit the enforcers of justice to track the villain 
> down. Without them, though, it's next to impossible... Also, as scale 
> grows, anonymity will become increasingly easy as well. Eventually, it 
> may break down on you.It will be interesting to see if this is the 
> case. It relies a lot on players' willingness to gossip, which may not 
> work out that well (is it possible for a group of 100 players to get 
> together and purposely report the same person for something nasty, to 
> get their character destroyed?)

I intend to use a seemingly similar approach with my guards/legal system -
in so far as it will be possible to report people for crimes (there will
be causes where the system will automatically make reports, of course). To
avoid a mob getting together and mass-reporting people to get them in
trouble, there is relatively little protection, save some basic tracking
of 'crimes actually witnessed' - if a crime is not witnessed, it will be
relatively unlikely that the 'accused' will be convicted.  Of course, if
the accusers are amongst the nobility, and far higher ranked socially than
the accused, witnesses may not be required ..

And then one can always take justice into ones own hands.

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	ICQ: 5580107
"I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world." -Einstein