[MUD-Dev] "short" Introductory Message (fwd)

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <Marcel-1.09-0620202228-0b0Ky&5 at Gryphon.knoware.nl>, on 06/20/97 
   at 07:25 PM, Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> said:

>On Thu 19 Jun, clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote:

>> In <199705172042.5025153.8 at shadow.null.net>, on 06/17/97 
>>    at 08:42 PM, Martin Keegan <martin at cam.sri.com> said:

>> No.  What is missing is feedback.  Consider the case of a mayor of a
>> city:

>>   Excluding bugetary considerations (another, different feedback
>> loop), he can promote as many beat cops as he wants to Sheriff or
>> whatever other tin badge value he wants.  The reason he doesn't do
>> this is that should those promoted not live up to the expectations
>> engendered in their new positions the mayor will lose his job.  (And
>> thus we get the idiocies of popularity-driven politics)  It is
>> essentially a time-delayed feedback loop.  He can spend as much power
>> as he wants on the beat cops -- but should the beat cops squander that
>> power, the mayor loses it.

>This is a wonderful idea.  Rank gives a player power,  but to use
>that power she must employ others to carry that power. If those
>others fail this reflects badly on the ranking player,  to the point
>that she will lose some of her power (rank).

A simple model:

  Player characters can award each other "rank points" (RP).

  Each player character is given (free) 1RP per day.

  A player character with sufficient RPs can be automagically 
  promoted to a high status position.

  Maintaining a high status position costs a player character 
  XXX RPs per day (automatic debit).

  A player caharacter can promote other player characters to other
  (lower) status positions.  

  Such a promotion costs the appointing player a one time cost of 
  YYY RPs.

  The promoted player has his own daily RP cost for his position.

  Should the high ranking player lose his position thru lack of 
  RP's, all appointees will also lose their position as it they 
  had failed to acquire enough RPs to maintain their own position.

  A junior ranked player can still appoint sub-juniours with the 
  same mapping as above.

Ergo: To survive a high ranking player must persaude many many other
players to give him their daily RPs so he can keep his position.  A
high ranking player may appoint juniours who are then also in the same
position, but can be required to funnel some portion of their
collections to their appointer.  

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...