[MUD-Dev] Re: Introductions and descriptions

[Adam Wiggins]

[Derrick Jones:]
> One other detail.  I really dislike those descriptions that give you too
> much information.  For example, 'He wields The Sword of Devistation in his
> right hand.' gives you the proper name of the object (the sword) of which
> the character has no knowledge.  Perhaps simular recognition code could be
> written for objects as well as for people.

One would assume this would be handled by object inheritence?  Characters,
locations, and items (swords of devestation) are all objects in most
systems, after all.
Note that you'll also need code to implant memory about something you've
read about if you want this.  Ie:

> read book
The book tells you about the mighty Sword of Devestation, lost to the
world with the sinking of Atlantis 10,000 years ago.  There is a picture
of the sword.
> 
Bob arrives from the south.
Bob draws a rusty old sword from his sheathe.
You recognize the sword as the Sword of Devestation!

> Hrm...this has the potential of creating a possible problem.  If player
> appearances are automatically generated, there comes into possibility the
> situation where a player receives a character that is a bit too much like
> their RL description.  The chance is slim, but given enough characters
> created, it will happen on occasion.  In the cases, the taunts directed
> at a character with an abnormality (which happens to be shared by its
> player) will create a potentially hostile environment for the _player_ as
> well as the character.  Normally, I'd say such a situation is up to the
> player to deal with, but in today's Politically Correct society, you've
> almost have to cater to those few who may take offense.(sigh)
> 
> Is there some mechanism built in for overiding the automatic generation,
> or the possibility to re-generate should an unplayable character be
> generated?

IMO very little should be left to chance.  Otherwise you get people
making characters over and over in order to get what they want.  If
you make it difficult to get characters (waiting period, difficult
application process, one character per e-mail, etc) then you just piss
people off, since they have to play a character they don't like.  Why
not just allow them to choose what they want to begin with?
Note that the randomly generated name thing mentioned earlier in this
thread doesn't bother me, since I can just tell people that I'm named
something different if I want.  Which is kind of cool - you get the
guy who everyone knows as "Slash" getting all embarrassed when someone
learns that his given name is Otis Squeedlebunk.
Our character creation is based on attributes, but the player selects
them instead of randomly generating them.  Now, there are so many attributes
that we don't present them to the player all at once.  Instead, we choose
a representative selection - everyone can choose to be especially strong
or especially tall, but the options to have a big nose or be the seventh
son of a seventh son will pop up less often.  Anyhow, we just use the
Ars Magica (I believe) point system.  Each attribute is assigned a number
of points based on its nature.  For instance, a big nose or nappy hair
would be worth 1, while a natural talent for bird-watching would be -1.
More 'imporant' attributes such as especially strong or stunningly
beautiful would be worth -4, while especially weak or incredibly ugly
would be worth 4.  When all is said and done the player ends up with a
score which they must 'pay' for with character creation points from their
account.  New accounts have no points, so they must end up with 0 or
less points.  There is also a cap on the number of attributes.  Thus,
you could make Cyrano at a cost of 4 points (talent for swordsmanship -3,
charismatic -2, big nose +1), or your average troll for no cost (especially
strong -4, incredibly ugly +4).