[MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...

[Matt Chatterley]

On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Jeff Kesselman wrote:

> At 08:39 PM 6/19/97 PST8PDT, Nathan wrote:
> 
> >:Part of your mistake ofcourse is that you are treatign AD&D characters as
> >:normal peopel. Theya re not, at high levels they are epic heros.
> >
> >Which is rather odd. A world with a hundred epic heroes running around all
> >the time... bleah. AD&D does not translate well to muds.
> 
> Ahah. Now THIS is an interestign issue and oft not well addressed.

Most (novice?) mud "designers"/admin/imps/whatever simply assume "AD&D
is/was a popular RPG, and it's pretty simple to make into a mud - it must
be good", or at least, the writers of some stock codes seem to have done
this, thus it propagates. Personally I never really liked AD&D - I
prefered my own (very very butchered) version of D&D (which took
mechanics away from the players completely, for a start, excluding the odd
h/s campaign for a laugh). It's very seldom addressed, and now you raise
it, quite fascinating.
 
> The goal of the adventure gamer is to be a hero. How do yo usupport a world
> full of geros?  An interestign design topic...

Or is the true goal of an adventure gamer different, but tied in with
being perceived as a hero - note the word perceived. Hercules, and a man
in modern times who risks his life to save others from a fire, are both
called heroes, and are both seen as heroes by different people, not
everyone will agree that both were heroes (one is mythical for a start).

Thusly, the goal I offer gamers to start with is *power* in varying
degrees, and they snap it up merily, in my experience. For the very good
(or very noble), power is taken as a side issue, and used to combat evil
(they still take it, but using less selfish reasons), for the evil, it's
to get back at the good, and to become more powerful, and crush more peons
underfoot. For the somewhere-inbetween, it's power to defend themselves (I
typcially fall into this category when I'm playing, especially if PK is
allowed).

I'm working on tying a reputation system into gameplay on caffeine
(something like the idea of alignment) - it depicts notoriety (is that
spelt right or not, I have no dictionary to hand), and a few other minor
issues. It's modified negatively for being *caught* and *judged* for
commiting a crime (your reputation doesnt suffer if you evade capture),
and positively for completing a quest, which the public hear about and
appreciate your efforts in (also negatively if the quest does them harm,
for instance collecting taxes for an evil sherrif).

Whether it is + or -, once the number is high (using the concept that -10
is MORE negative than -5, and thus a higher negative number) enough,
people begin to hear of you outside the area where you are doing these
deeds (it's stored by place you do stuff.. with a global total which rises
VERY slowly), and will treat you asuch. Slighly negative reputation -
they'll be nasty to you if they're good folk, very negative, and they
might fear you, and be somewhat subservient. It's all about power.

Also, two options exist for high(ish) level players - a great (and very
deadly) quest for demi-godhood, and/or (not entirely mutually exclusive,
but very close to it) the ability to become part of the noble (either by
good deeds, or literally buying your way in), and amass land, people (PCs
and NPCs), and an army, etc.

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"He can't stop us, we're on a mission from Glod!" - Soul Music (Pratchett)