[MUD-Dev] Thoughts on Marian's Tailor Problem

[s001gmu at nova.wright.edu]

Just some idle thoughts.

A society is (roughly) defined as a group of individuals with 'stuff' in
common (traditionally location, anymore, that is changing).  The problem
in question arises because there is NO society, no common ground, between
the fighter and tailor.  As Marian pointed out, the fighter looses nothing
(or very little) in the attack, and stands to gain something (fame,
noteriety, etc), while the tailor stands to loose everything, and gain
nothing.  All of this from a lack of common ground.

Immediate solution:  Provide that common ground.  How?  That's a tough
question.  Simple answer:  make the tailor _necessary_ to the fighter...
then the tailor becomes not a target, but something to protect.  Someone
else (whose name I can't recall) was espousing this method recently... of
making the game more inclusive... the tailor provides something that the
game can not, and that is necessary to the game.  Therefore the tailor
becomes a resource, and not a target.  This still provides ample
opportuinty for in-character reasons to attack the tailor (remove the
enemy's resources to cripple them, then take over), but also encourages
alternate methods of attack... rather than killing, why not kidnap, and
make them work for you?  or why go that far, just try to convince them
that bubba-ville is a nicer place to live/work than boffo-ville.  Either
way, all of this is happening within the context of the game, and is less
traumatic to the tailor's player (one would hope).  This also encourages
the protector of the tailor to be vigalant.  Loose your tailor, loose your
source of clothing, and quite soon you start to be affected more by the
weather.

The important thing to keep in mind whilst implementing this is that the
rest of the system _has_ to be built to support this.  Weather has to
affect the characters, and the tailor _has_ to be the only _convenient_
source of clothing to reduce that affect.  Loose/replace any one of those
components with something else, and the tailor becomes worthless, which
generally equates to 'target' (if it moves, shoot it, if it doesn't, shoot
it anyway, to make sure).

I guess my main point is, if you are building a combat game and want to
add tailors, make sure they fit in the WHOLE game.  You can't just patch
them on the side, or things like Marion's Tailor Problem emerge.  If you
are going about it the other way, making a tailor game and patching in
combat, again, make sure it fits withing the WHOLE game.  You can't go
around willy nilly, adding in features, without considering the impact on
the ballance of the whole system.  Noone would EVER consider adding
tailors to Quake, without major modifications to the underlying game
mechanics, so why would you consider adding them to a combat mud without
changes to the underlying system?

-Greg