[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers

[Damion Schubert]

-----Original Message-----
From: quzah <quzah at geocities.com>
>Upon this, we allow, upon creation, the purchase of similar types
>of runes, which are premenant tatoos upon the body. These prevent
>the same sort of thing happening to the player itself. -- These
>could be handled in any of a number of ways, but for now, I'll
>list two: (1) Explained as wards tattoed on as a child. [free],
>(2) Purchased by the character from a magician[whatever] [not-
>free]


You certainly could use a personal 'PK' switch, and use whatever
trappings you want around it to explain it.  Many muds have done it.
EverQuest appears to have such a switch that you set upon initial
creation, and which is 'very difficult' to change.  Meridian 59 has such
a switch - it is set to 'no PK' until you hit 30 hit points, at which time
you automatically become 'PK'.

The devil, I found, is really in the details.  Given the example of
Marion the tailor, let's say that Marion has an evil twin, named Dark
Marion, who has acquired one of these tattoos.  Now let's say that
she stumbles upon Bob the Paladin and Joe the Anti-Paladin, duking
it out.  We all can assume that she can't attack either Bob or Joe.
But can she:
    * cast heal on either Bob or Joe?
    * give a potion to either Bob or Joe?
    * use a wand on either Bob or Joe?
    * cast a spell which hurts all evil things in the room, which
        includes Joe?
    * cast a spell which merely gives good players in the room
an attack bonus, which would benefit Bob?
    * Kill Joe's pet daemon, which was beating up nicely on Bob?
    *Stand between Joe and Bob so Joe can't swing a sword (and
        probably gets annoying 'You can't attack Dark Marion!' messages)
        but Bob can shoot with arrows or fireballs?
    * Simply stand blocking the exit of the room so Joe cannot escape?
    * Cast a spell that strips all enchantments (either beneficial or not)
        on either Joe or Bob?
    * loot Joe's freshly rotting corpse?
    * Accept Bob's offer of items freshly plundered from Joe's corpse?
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the annoying ways that players found
to work non-killable players to their advantage on Meridian 59 - many
required code solution that created a byzantine labyrinth of rules for
players to navigate in the crunch of battle.

All in all Ultima Online has solved the problem in a much more positive
and realistic fashion: if you don't want to be killed as a Tailor, then you
should probably make friends with big, burly people.  Sure, it forces you
to interact wholesomely with other individuals, but then that's kind of the
whole point, isn't it?  The only problem is that you are depending on
players behaving the way you expect them to, in order to form a coherent
society.  Not only is this always uncertain, but the tailors are sure to
suffer
until that society gels.

--damion