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

[Adam Wiggins]

[Derrick Jones:]
> I'm personally in favor of incorporating non-lethal/non-weapon combat into
> the regular IC game.  This will become essential as all weapons will be
> confiscated at the main gate to the town in question.  That is all weapons
> the guards manage to find.  It seems odd to me that I have never seen this
> done on muds, yet this was common practice in midievial times...(I'm sure
> its been done _somewhere_ but I haven't seen it.  Anybody know where?)

Well, options to stop when your opponent becomes unconscious (usually 0
hitpoints) are very common, but this is rather silly as, at high level,
characters do so much damage that they can't help but to kill someone
without them entering an unconscious-but-still-alive state, except by
pure chance.  I think mainly this stems from the reliance on hitpoints -
there's no such thing as a blow to the head which knocks someone unconscious
without doing much permenant damage.  Even in a limb-based system,
frequently the only way to stop someone without actually killing them
involves chopping off all their arms and legs so that all they can do is
lie there.  Rather silly, but I don't see any way around this with the
simplistic D&D-style damage system that is normally used.

> > > Why? If the police employs mages they have the same option. Or they can
> > > prevent the gate from opening, or from closing behind the mage. There's
> > > any number of things you can do to solve this I would think?
> > 
> > but then you're being hypocritical and really endangering the suspension
> > of disbelief. it becomes unreal (in the sense that realism is unto the
> > game itself) because you've outlawed mages in a city, but here you are
> > using other mages to keep them out.
> 
> No mages are permitted in the city. Violence is not.  The problem occurs
> because it becomes very difficult to confiscate a wizards weapons.  The

That's assuming a lot about the magic system.  Many muds require that
mages have some sort of a channeling device (ie, a staff) and clerics
have a symbol of their god in order to work magic.  Some require that
spellbooks be held in one hand while the character is casting.  In this
case, holding your spellbook is identical to wielding a weapon.

> town populace knows that magic can either aid or harm.  I don't see a

Well, if you have a magic system which is based entirely around destructive
magic, it would be ideal to confiscate the mage's spellbook at the
entrance to the town.  If not, things get more complex, as you say.

> reason to have the town guard intervene if a spellcaster decides to clear
> up the leporsy infecting the town beggar.  If the same spellcaster decides

Depends on the town's paranoia of magic.  On a mud I worked on a few
years back, we had it set up so that there was a spell-lore skill.
Whenever someone cast the spell, each person in the room made perception
and spell-lore checks to try to determine whether the spell is harmful or
not, and then whether or not it is targeted at them.  Characters which were
poor at spell-lore (ie, barbarians) would tend to assume the worst.  Thus
a mage trying to cast a spell in a room full of barbarians tended to have
about half of them scream and attack him, and the other half dive out of
the room screaming 'Take cover!'  This was, of course, particularly
humorous when the spell was bless or armor or shield.

Thus you can have a town which is paranoid of magic and any spellcasting
tends to draw the authorities.  Telling the judge that you were trying to
do a good deed won't help you in the slightest.  Other towns may be more
knowledgable of magic, and therefore more leniant.

> I believe the suggestion was to have the guards track down the outlaw
> whenever the logged back on, not having players track them down...although
> either senario destoys the SOD.  The player would then presumably log back
> on as another character, scope out the town, then quicky log back on as
> the outlaw and use the other characters information to escape, repeating
> the log-off,log-on cycle as many times as it takes to elude the pursuers.
> I'd like to note the sarcasm in the original statement as well...thought
> the '(cackle)' gave that much away.

If you require players to log off at an inn, a temple, or some other
special room, this simplifies this quite a bit.  Just put a guard who
screens players leaving and entering the game.  Naturally this could
offer the opportunity to create a hidden inn which doesn't have such screening.

> > > Of course nothing would prevent the patrol guards to send for a mage or
> > > two to disable your magical defenses.  If the city allows such defenses
> > > in town in the first place. Or the mage would place a magical dome over
> > > your house that prevents you from leaving?
> > 
> > again the problem of employing mages being hypocritical.

As for this bit: are police officers hypocritical because they carry
guns?  Are guards hypocritical for carrying swords?  Employing mages
as guards is no differnet.

> not really you missed the beginning of the thread.  Mages aren't outlawed.
> I just don't want to throw in a brute-force solution.  That will be
> transparent and the players will see the town guard for what it really
> is...a group of super-high-level brutes that wouldn't be consisant with
> the world dynamics.  The obvious questions I'd have to answer would be: if
> the guards are the most powerful creatures in the game world, then why are
> they guards?  How can an average town afford to hire a contigent of
> super-powerful beings to protect them?  Who guards the guards?

Heh.  Well, as I see it, this is a problem that stems from super-powerful
players.  Tone that down and the guard problem tones down as well.