[MUD-Dev] Guilds & Politics

[Matt Chatterley]

On Thu, 11 Dec 1997, Maddy wrote:

> Previously, Koster, Raph wrote....
> 
> [Snip]
> > Major issues: "Oops, I accidentally attacked my friend!" "Hey, my=20
> > friend and I want to attack each other to practice weaponry, yet our=20
> > reputations suffer!" "This guy broke into my house, but had a good=20
> > reputation, and I would damage mine if I attacked him" Plus, the top=20
> > playerkiller groups now are GOOD guys who self-righteously hunt down=20
> > anyone who has slipped slightly in reputation and kills them, because=20
> > that way they kill indiscriminately but still keep their reputation=20
> > up. This can be seen as a benefit, I guess, since it adds a lot of=20
> > teeth to the system :)
> 
> What may work is if you have the system define someone as a valid enemy. 
> Thus if Bubba broke into Boffo's house, Boffo would be perfectly within his
> right to attack Bubba.  Likewise if someone attacks you first (I'm guessing
> a person with an "bad" rep would suffer if they killed in self-defense)
> you'd not ruin your rep.

I handly this muchly as: A fight upon sanctioned practise grounds will not
be taken notice of unduly (unless of course you get a knife fight in a
boxing ring, and so forth). In cases where 'self defence' is evident, I do
indeed do as you say reputation-wise. If you have a criminal reputation,
situations are likely to be mis-interpreted, if your reputation is
indifferent or good, things go to your favour in varying degrees as one
might expect.
 
> > But the biggest problem of course: it's just another layer of game to=20
> > play. All the above can be manipulated (we do hide numbers on this of=20
> > course, but there is an overall title) and an expert player can play=20
> > the numbers. It also damages roleplay quite a lot since playing an=20
> > honorable rogue is very difficult, and it basically makes large scale=20
> > combat impossible right now (as it would ruin the reputations of=20
> > everyone in the battle).
> 
> Well surely the rogue's rep would only go down if they were seen/caught
> being rogue-like?  There'd be no point playing one, if every time you broke
> into a unprotected house you lost rep - you'd be dead within days.

Yup. You need to get seen to suffer some loss of reputation, or caught to
really suffer. The challenge of being a rogue exists in *not getting
caught* and to a lesser extent, getting out of trouble.

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