[MUD-Dev] Fear of magic (was:Usability and interface)

[Adam Wiggins]

[Jon L:]
> [Marian:]
> > just complained  that it was easy to control ordinary fighters that
> > entered the city by forcing them to abandon their weapons, but that
> > this obviously  would not work for mages.  Or at least the original
> > idea was that it would be impossible to do ICly.
> 
> Outlawing mages within a city... Someone mentioned the idea that 
> magic use might leave traces of magical energy.  Following this 
> idea a bit further perhaps those who have employed magic recently
> have detectable amounts left on their hands ("hand waving") much
> like the nitrate residue left from firing firearms.  Surely entering 
> town could be checked out by guards at the city gates with some form 
> of device perhaps even magical in nature.  Of course if a mage (or
> fighter with prohibited weapons) is able to "sneak" into and out of a 
> town more power to them. :)

I like this.  Of course, the best part about a method like this is all
the variations.  Since the magical residue is only an indication of whether
or not you've been using magic recently, a mage can decide that they need to
visit a town for whatever reason and just lay off casting for a week,
or however long is necessary, kind of like a junkie laying off the drugs
for a while in order to pass a drug test for a job interview.  Of course
whatever scanning mechanism they might use to detect the residue (in a
fantasy setting I assume it would be a person familiar with the mystical arts)
would have varying levels of sensativety.  Thus two mages chatting might
say things like, "Yeah, be careful in ElfTown, they can easily tell if you've
been casting any time in the last month.  TrollTown is a breeze, though...
just don't cast for 24 hours beforehand and you're fine."  Also, there would
probably be mechanisms (maybe spells, maybe something else) for trying to
cover up magical residue.  And of course, just to be nasty, there would
have to be spells which cause magical residue to appear on some other
surface - namely the hands of your unsuspecting victim an hour before they
plan to enter a town...