[MUD-Dev] Resisting Charm or you're cute and nice, but not to die for.

[J C Lawrence]

On Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:37:22 PST8PDT 
Jon A Lambert<jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> And about that Charm spell....

Those philandering greek deity wannabes...

> In a GM adjudicated RPG, ala D&D, Ars Magica and many others, there
> are spells that have less than absolute mental effects.  D&D's
> version of Charm is one of these spells where the affected creature
> will supposedly become trusting and friendly to the caster.
> However, the afflicted will have the charm dispelled if the caster
> requests them to perform an action which is either life-threatening
> or totally against their strongest proclivities.  Also many of these
> spells are broken by direct or indirect attack by the caster.  Much
> of this is necessarily vague, situational, and subject to your GM's
> personal whims.

> Admittedly, Diku-like Charm is usually equivalent to robotic control
> for the spell duration.  This also has serious consequences on game
> play and perhaps as dramatic as the aforementioned gate/teleport
> spells.  Most often I've seen it implemented as a "digital" charm
> so-to-speak, rather than an "analog" charm.  It's either on or off.

> Wouldn't this spell and those like it be more interesting and
> unpredictable it resistance to charm was attempted after each
> requested action?  Especially in a strong RP environment where such
> spells often cross the boundaries of player consent/non-consent.
> Player characters could be offered the option to attempt to resist
> or go along with the requested action.  A given action might even be
> successfully resisted, yet the afflicted still remains entranced.

> Thoughts and ideas anyone?
 
I don't have charm.  I have body stealing.  Body stealing is not a
binary affair, it is (usually) a messy, complex, and very unstable
affair fraught with potential dangers:

Characters are of course abstracted from their bodies.  A character
may own and control multiple bodies.  As I'll note later, the level of
control of each of those bodies may range from total to very minor
fractions.

-- A character which has level of control in any body, dies and is
deleted from the system.  

-- A character, when controlling a body, upon encountering another
body (presumably controlled by another player or possibly an NPC, it
really doesn't matter) may attempt to steal that body.

-- Stealing a body is a battle of willpower.  It tends to be
expensive, of uncertain result, and debilitating to the character.

-- A body is "stolen" when the attacking character wrests more than
50% control of the body, and is then (more or less) under the control
of the new character.  

-- The priorly owning character is left with the remaining "share" of
the bodies control.  This is called "partial ownership".

-- Characters fighting for control of a body who have an ownership
interest in that body (full or partial) prior to the fight are at an
advantage (home field advantage).

-- Characters fighting for control of a body who are currently in
control of that body are also at an advantage (home territory).

-- It may be that during the course of a willpower fight that there
are many changes in ownership and ascendency of the body.  Consider
the case where a body is 55% owned by character A, 30% by character B, 
and 15% owned by character C.  When X attacks for control of the body
he is fighting A (tho B, and C may join in on either side).  If X
forces B and C totally out of the body and then pushes C back only
another 6% he controls the body.  However, if B manages to gain
another 21% in the body during the fight, he win control (for a bit),
etc. 

-- It is possible to control a body and totally evict all other
interests in the body.  This essentially means fighting until all
other ownership percentages become zero.  It is difficult and
tiresome.

-- When a character has no ownership interest in any bodies, the
character is deemed to have "died" and in deleted from the system.

-- The partial ownership percentage of characters not in control of a
body will gradually erode over time at a rate proportional to the size 
of their percentage.  The intention is that the character in control
of a body will naturally gradually erode the ownership percentages of
the partial owners without having to engage in a debilitating fight
for that remaining pecentage.

-- A character with partial ownership of a body may fight for
ascendency at any time.  Typically such fights will quickly throw the
balance of control in their favour (the value of surprise).  Fights
and resistance are not on a per-command-to-the-body basis, but are
down for general control of the whole body.

-- I exect the typical body to be carrying at least two or three
partial owners at any given instant.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                               Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------(*)                     Internet: claw at under.engr.sgi.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...