[MUD-Dev] Re: Administrative notes

[Nathan Yospe]

On Fri, 16 May 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:

:Agreed with all this - however I think the vital element here is risk of
:death.  Cost of armor and weapons is an issue, true.  What keeps everyone
:in the world from being master killers is that in order to _become_ a master
:killer, you have to kill a whole lot.  If you kill a whole lot, pretty soon,
:people start coming after you and wanting you kill _you_.  Live by the sword,
:die by the sword.  If you want to run out and constantly get into
:life-or-death fights, you'll quickly become a good fighter.  But sooner
:or later it's gonna catch up with you, and most likely sooner.  I like
:combat as much as the next mudder, but I think it's been waaaay over done.
:It seems reasonable to make players pick and choose their fights; maybe
:not to the extreme you see on a MUSH, but more in that direction.  (If
:you're thinking in terms of MUSHes, then there is a different argument -
:I think combat needs to be less contrived.)

I like to think that, even for a fighter, most of the effort should go
into _avoiding_ fights... unless you think you can win, or, say, you are
providing a diversion for someone else or defending a position that needs
defending, or have been paid/ordered/offended into killing that _specific_
person.

:> For example, a healer type should simply heal.   It's a bit contradictory
:> to job title if that player must also go out into the world and actually
:> kill.  Now, you can't have that same player sitting in the middle of town
:> square healer non threatening injured players while leveling up a storm.

:Why?  Why, why, why, why?  I don't get it.
:If you want to be good at something, you do it a lot.  What is the problem
:with becoming a good healer by healing, becoming a good fighter by fighting,
:and becoming a good juggler by juggling?  You just don't like for thinks
:to make any sort of sense?

Your choice. A bit dull, but your choice. I don't see anything wrong with
choosing non combat not dangerous skills. Aside from the fact that I have
rigged my game to kill those sort of people unless they get _real_ good at
running and hiding. *grin*

:> One possible solution would be to force healers to first assume the
:> injuries of other players and then attempt to heal themselves; that is
:> they would only be able to heal themselves.  This involves some risk, but
:> a careful player could be absolved of any substantial risk.

:I forget where I first saw this, but I like it a lot.  Druids (I think)
:had self-healing skills and skills to transfer the wounds of others to
:themselves.  Very cool.

Seems to me a healer's biggest worry is failure. A healer that fails, say,
to heal some big ogre of a barbarian's brother may have some traveling to
do real soon.

:> Another solution could involve metal health.  Lack of mental health could
:> be equally debilitating as an equal lack of physical health.  Thus, a mage
:> or cleric could cause great harm to themselves using the skills they are
:> suppose to use.  Spell use would cause great strain on your mental
:> faculties... and perhaps even insanity.

:Also cool, but again, I don't think it's necessary to have some sort of
:'risk of character deletion' associated with everything you try to do.
:How will you keep fishermen from becoming kick-ass by just sitting around
:and fishing all day long?  Make sharks appear every so often and swallow up
:the dock they are sitting on?   How about that seamstress, will she have
:a chance of pricking her finger with a needle and bleeding to death?
:*boggle*

Well, if the seamstress is in Ankh-Morpork, her biggest worry is certain
communicatable diseases. (Trying to remember which book the quote comes
out of... The guild of seamstresses has some large number of official
members - and two needles between the lot of them. Terry Pratchett's
Discworld, for those that don't know.)

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Nathan F. Yospe - University of Hawaii Dept of Physics - yospe at hawaii.edu