[MUD-Dev] Resisting Charm or you're cute and nice, but not t

[Jon A. Lambert]

On  9 Apr 98 at 14:58, J C Lawrence wrote:
> 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...
>

Heh.  It has troubled me, because of my intention to do a greek 
theme, that I might have to adopt a greek alias.  Based on the 
lengthy history of greek-aliased posters in, urm, other forums (I 
count at least 6), I might succumb to some strange sort of negative 
ka which causes bad things to happen to one's ability to relate and 
communicate with other "perceived-to-be" lesser endowed individuals.  
I did note that the usage of a greek alias appears to be limited to 
philosophers and men of scientific knowledge.  Perhaps that's the 
rub.  And so, I have picked one of my personal favorites, a man who 
would have kicked Achilles butt had he been on the other side, a hero 
of little brain but bold aspirations,  proud holder of the most 
graphical references in the Iliad to spilt bowels and brains, one who 
could compress few thoughts into many words, the glorious Diomedes.  
So in the future, you will please address me as Diomedes or "the 
poster previously known as sigma mu" ;)   

[snipped my semi-cogent thoughts to include noisy sidetrack above]

> > 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:

Right.  Even though our games be very different there are a few 
common threads here to any game. 

1) How to represent such a battle for control to the player in an
interesting and enjoyable way.  
2) What metaphysical tools, energies and resources are tapped to 
conduct such a battle.  (mana, will, soul, psychic, ka, etc.)
3) What are the effects on the perceptions of the players during 
complete control and partial control during these events and 
afterwords.
4) Multi-character/body handling in terms of user interface.

Spells, skills or affects tangently related to body-stealing: 

Possession - suppression of mind by another mind to various 
            degrees and periods of time.
Psionics - external mental attacks (could result in possession or 
           charm)
Charm/Suggestion - forced action by an external force. (usually does
           not imply mental possession.
Drugs/Alchohol - impaired action or highly screwed perceptions 
           caused external substance.
Cybertech - mental implants which result in various degrees of 
           possession, impaired action or perception.  Possibly 
           remote control.
Disease/Mental Illness - similar to drugs/alchohol.
Death - forced separation of mind/soul from body, usually physical 
        but not always.
Illusion - subversion of perception.
Confusion/Fear - more specific and brief attacks - may parallel some
        psionics. 
Predestination/Fate - Event that will occur at some point 
        irregardless of player decisions/actions. <grin> 

I leave out the rest of the body-stealing concept for others to
comment on. ;)

--
--/*\ Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD     Internet:jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com /*\--
--/*\ Mud Server Developer's Page <http://www.netcom.com/~jlsysinc> /*\--
--/*\   "Everything that deceives may be said to enchant" - Plato   /*\--