[MUD-Dev] Reusable plots for quests

[Derrick Jones]

On Thu, 23 Oct 1997 coder at ibm.net wrote:

> 
> On 20/10/97 at 09:54 AM, "Travis Casey" <efindel at polaris.net> said:
> >Brandon J. Rickman <ashes at pc4.zennet.com> wrote:
> >>On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 22:58:39 PST8PDT "Travis Casey"
> >><efindel at polaris.net> wrote:
> >>>Brian Price <blprice at bedford.net> wrote:
> 
> >IMHO, a mud should not have a "steady-state" position -- if it does, then
> >the players can't really change the world in any significant way, and all
> >their actions are for naught.  While this might be realistic, it's
> >definitely not fitting in the heroic mold.
> 
> I don't think this is possible if there is any form of game continuity
> (echoes of the evolution threads that ran a while back?).  Consider, if it
> is possible for players to fundamentally affect and change the game, and
> the game does not have a steady state, then the game will progressively
> mutate over time until it becomes utterly alien to its initial
> incarnation.
>
I think here its just a matter of scale.  Set some physical laws of your
mud-universe and have them locked and static.  Design your mud-world to
function within those laws, and do not allow changes to violate those
laws.  Anything else is free game.  This will keep the rate of mutations
in the muds evolution down to a slow crawl (players will learn to adapt to
the different physical limits of the mud-universe), and the game mechanics
can be updated to match the current game state.

> Consider: Could you make a game which was playable in Flatland but which
> was also equally playable in out RL world, __and__ in the interesting
> warps of time and space about a black whole, __and_ in a high magic world
> etc etc etc?

The change from one state to another would be so slow that players
wouldn't be playing the same game in the Flatland as in one that modeled
RL.  Also, if the physical laws of the mud-world remain consistant,
major deviations outside the scope of the game design shouldn't be
possible.

> Much more tempting I think is to attempt a game world which interally
> strives to maintain a macro steady state.  Sure, there can eb major
> upheavals and changes to the internal structure and minutae of the world,
> but the bnasic pattern remains unchanged, and left to its own devices, the
> game world will internally conspire to return the minutae to their
> default-ish characteristics.

I would add the caveat that since the game-world is rarely left to its own
devices, that even major change is possible.  An example would be if you
had a mud where in order to return from the dead, you had to pass through
a certain portal (a simplified model of course), and justified NPC 
re-population as the NPC doing whatever had to be done to get to its
specific portal, then passing through.  Now if you seal that portal beyond
the ability of the NPC to reopen it, that NPC is forever and irrevocably
dead.  If this is repeated for all trolls on the entire mud-world, and the
portals are vigalantly guarded, trolls would forever vanish from the game,
especially if the life-force-energy slowly dissipates if you are on the
dead-side of the portal.

> Thus you can have a game which is set, perhaps, in the Rebel Alliance
> against Darth Vader, The Rebel's are never totally defeated, and Darth
> Vader never actually dies.  The game then occurs within the defined steady
> state of the war.  What particular planets are on what side, who lives,
> who doesn't, and what the curent power balance is, is all in flux with the
> curves asymptotic on both sides.
> 
You're describing more of an ongoing unsolvable quest.  Another way to
look at the game would be to start with the Rebels vs the Empire senario,
then, (if the Rebels should happen to lose) let there be some pockets of
seemingly hopeless resistance which could be a start of the Second
Rebellion, or (if Darth Vader falls) you could have a new threaght
challenge the newly formed Alliance Republic (there were several books
written in such a setting).

The general genre of game (good vs evil sci-fi Star Wars Universe) hasn't
changed, but the goals and personas have.

Gunther