[MUD-Dev] Players as Monsters/NPCs

[Richard Woolcock]

Jon A. Lambert wrote:
> [snip]
> Not only do I find it entertaining, I want the option. :)
> 
> Here's a repost of something earlier along a similar vein:
> --cut--
> > Sun, 25 May 1997 20:33:42 -0400
> > From: Jamie Norrish <jamie at sans.vuw.ac.nz>
> >
> > What I wrote was that, from a role-playing point of view, having
> > mechanics get in the way of what I want to achieve. If my character
> > conception is of an experienced soldier, then I expect the system to
> > fit that. But there aren't many games where the admins will allow this
> > sort of thing - "play balance" they say, or "we're afraid of munchkins".
> > To my mind, neither of those reasons are sufficient - I was very annoyed
> > on Armageddon that I could not play an older character from the very
> > start.[snip]
> This is exactly what I have in mind, more or less.  When a person
> logs into my mud, they in essence get a user account, not a particular
> character.  The first-time user will be able to create a character
> from scratch similar to most muds.  Users who exhibit good
> role-playing skills will have their character creation menus extended
> to allow them to create more powerful, older and otherwise more
> experienced characters or to play NPCs within the game.  Multiplaying
> and/or game mastering will be enabled for those who exhibit more
> ability and responsibility.  There are a number of levels of trust here
> between allowing creation of brand new "newbie" characters to multiplaying
> or game mastering.  Some of these will require character or scenario
> approval by the imp (me).  A lot of these restrictions have less to do with
> game balance than thematic consistency which I consider to be more
> important.[snip]

Oooh sounds a bit like my new system (Stephen Zepp has had a brief look ;).
Players start with a number of 'dots' in particular catagories (which they
can prioritise), and spend them as they see fit.  This means that if you
want to, you can bang your Brawl and Melee right up to max right from the
start and have Physical as your primary attributes - but you'll be somewhat 
limited in other areas if you're not careful.

I am planning on expanding this system so that players who die and come
back on can spend their 'brought over' exp straight away (at the moment
they have to spend them once they are back in the game), as well as
getting more advanced starting options depending how many soul points
they have.  I'm also planning on improving the combat system so that 
your fighting abilities can become more flexible with experience, even 
though a new player might be as good as you in their specific type of 
fighting - otherwise combat will become very dull.

With no experience points for combat, and all 'fighter types' of roughly
equal power (unless they have experienced souls and are playing vampires/
werewolves/etc), I hope to make combat both rarer and more tactical (no
more charging around hitting anything that moves, cos they'll hit you
back just as hard).

This is one of the benefits (and drawbacks) of basing my system on a
roleplaying game.

KaVir.