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

[Adam Wiggins]

[Caliban:]
> Something I've discussed with some people is the idea that when a player
> dies in a game with permanent death, it's terribly demoralising to start
> over at ground zero. One thing I have considered doing is allowing them
> to take some credit for previous accomplishments in the form of benefits
> and artificial advancement for the next character. For example, in an
> AD&D game, I'd give them some form of starting experience and equipment
> that allows them to hold their own in the party; in a White Wolf game,
> I'd give them some portion of the experience their previous character
> had earned to buy skills and whatnot; in a Cyberpunk game, I'd probably
> let them start with a greater budget for cybernetic enhancements. 

A side project which I have mused over for a long time (actually, ever
since I saw the movie Dusk till Dawn) was a PK vampire mud.  When you
first started, your account (see my other post about accounts) would
have access to only "peasant human" (similar to that old MUX where you
start out as a beggar).  As your character achieves rank and other stuff,
you'd have access to those things.  For instance, if your character became
a licensed vampkiller, your account would be flagged with vampkiller access,
and the next time you make a character, you could start them as a vampkiller.
By the same token if your character was accepted into the church of God,
it would keep track of your rank.  Thus if you were only a 3rd circle
accolyte, you could only make those.  If you managed to work up to
arch-bishop, you'd have access to that, plus all the lower ranks (3rd through
1st circle accolyte, 3rd through 1st circle priest).  If your character
was bitten by a werewolf, you could start off your new characters from
then on with lycanthropy.  If you were enslaved by a vampire, you could
choose to start off as undead.  Etc etc etc.  Your character would also
get the skills or whatever befitting of a person in that position - if you
manage to become a vampire and get a stake shoved through your heart, you
could create a new vampire who has passable skills for vampire-type things.
This allows you to immediately jump straight back into the game in more
or less the position you were at before, but keeps all the advantages that
permanent death offer.

However...that's all just stuff bouncing around in my brain.  For my current
project, we have character creation points.  On startup your account only
gets one creation point, and can thus only create the most basic characters.
You need more creation points (earned by advancing characters you have) to
make the more advanced races.  (This also keeps newbies from getting stuck
with a nearly impossible-to-play race, like the Issathi...a shunned and feared
race of snake-men.)  Also we've considered allowing creation points to
be used to add to skills, as well as your starting gear...so making a
dwarf who has worked his whole life in the mines and whose only possesions
consist of some simple clothing would cost fewer points than a dwarf who
was raised in a clan of Battlemasters and is decked out in mithril platemail
and a battle-axe.