[MUD-Dev] Re: Affordances and social method (Was: Re: Wired

[Jon A. Lambert]

On  1 Aug 98, Marian Griffith wrote:
> On Fri 31 Jul, J C Lawrence wrote:
> > So, what is the baseline in your system?  Yes, you are playing a
> > tailor, which is a valid occupation in this game, and are not playing
> > a sword wielding armoured warrior, which is another supported role in
> > the game.  This does not mean that the tailor should not and does not
> > have some skill at self-defense or street fighting, or more simply,
> > that he is not savvy in the more physical aspects of his world.  It
> > all depends on the game designed-in assumable skill sets.
> 
> I think we are constantly missing the point the other is trying to make
> which makes me wonder if there is any reason to continue the discussion
> I do not mean it is pointless but we do not seem to get anywhere.
>
 
I think there may be some confusion as to the terms protection, 
enforcement and prevention.  Maybe not, but anyway...

It is my opinion that once PvP non-consential actions are allowed in 
a game, there is no prevention from adverse player actions from 
occurring.  

Protections can take many forms.  These can be player created 
protections ranging from developing one's combat skills to 
wielding special equipment (i.e. Colt .45) to player run societies 
such as clans, guilds, etc.  Game supplied protections may range from 
the ability to hire bodyguards to magical devices and wards to 
regular town/city guard patrols, etc.

Enforcement is always after the fact and might include possees, 
bounty hunters, city guards, legal and justice systems, imprisonment 
and capital punishments.  It may well extend to "out-of-game" devices
such as banning and deletion of characters.  And there's no guarantee 
that enforcement is always guaranteed nor just.

It is also my opinion that as protections are added by either the 
game or players, the frequency of "mud crime" will not decrease, it 
may in fact escalate.  OTOH, the success of the crime will decrease 
substantially  (at least initially, until a more clever criminal 
class will invariably develop).

> > Another view of this is how narrowly the occupation skills are
> > defined, or at least how narrowly pursuit of an occupation defines the
> > other skill sets.  Is a good or even excellant tailor necessarily an
> > abysmall sword swinger?
> 
> Is it necessary for a tailor to care at all?

Yes.  Ask any owner/proprietor whether they gave this much thought.
I'd bet medieval shop owners thought about this also.  The phrase 
"police protection" is a misnomer.  Even in modern civilized society 
large department store chains hire security guards (whose primary 
role is visibility) and mom & pop shops likely have guns on premise.  
The role of the police and governmental institutions occurs 95% 
after the fact.  Visibility might be a deterrent to the remaining 5%.

There is a big difference, criminals in muds don't fear death, they 
just resurrect or reincarnate, while IRL, fear of death is a great 
deterrent.  So make death permanent or require the retrieval of the 
body by "friends".  Hmm.. perhaps guardsmen take corpses found at 
crime scenes into custody to prevent their resurrection. ;)

> Originally I started the, I expect by now infamous, tailor example as
> being about -me-.  I can easily imagine myself  playing the role of a
> tailor in a mud.  Most of the things I mentioned are things I believe
> can be fun to do and would, for me, make a fun game to play. It would
> be a non violent role in a nearly non violent environment. I will not
> request the impossible  and demand an entirely safe environment since
> there will always be troublemakers. What I do however feel I have the
> right to demand is that being non-violent myself the game will defend
> me from the occasional trouble maker. 

Well I'm somewhat confused about the term "troublemaker".  I think 
they come in two flavors.  One is the out-of-game troublemaker, who
sole mission is to screw with people on a personal level or destroy 
or otherwise dominate games (attention-driven as Dr. Cat suggests).
The other is the in-game troublemaker, who happens to playing a 
character which by chance (or game design) is often in a adversial or 
competitive role with your tailor.  This could be a cat burgular 
doing their in-game duty to acquire your goods or a con artist 
masquerading as a reputable merchant, or it could even be a noble 
knight who has kleptomania trait or problem.  ;)  

The latter is a highly desireable troublemaker and the former is 
considered an undesireable by many mud admins.

> Defend, not prevent. If I can't
> be a peacefull tailor  because I would be everybody's victim then the
> game has in a very real way failed to live up to its promise to me. I
> do not at this moment care how things are going to be handled. I even
> think that it is irrelevant as long as 'we' do not admit that the is-
> sue must be solved at another level than giving players means to kill
> each other in more or less creative ways.
 
Ah, but can you think of a mechanism that does not apply the
essence of brute force to one or more of the participants?  If the 
game lives up to it's promise from the tailor player  game, does it 
fail to live up to the promises to the theif player game?    

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