[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

CJones at aagis.com CJones at aagis.com
Tue Jul 7 13:44:15 CEST 1998


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Chatterley [mailto:matt at mpc.dyn.ml.org]
> Sent: Monday, July 06, 1998 11:23 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun
> 

---------8< snip >8--------

> An alternative of course, is to change our perception of normal, 
> instead of a binary state (Normal, Criminal, or 0, 1), how about 
> trinary? Back to the old Good, Neutral, Evil (no Chaos theory 
> accepted at this time). You're evil if you do bad things (PS, 
> PK). You're good if you kill a PKer, or return goods which a PS 
> took, to their rightful owner. If you do neither, you are neutral
> (criminal status = -1, 0, 1 for Good, Neutral, Evil). If you are 
> Good, and then PK or PS, you flick straight to evil (no 
> 'adjustments'), but.. does that make sense? Now we only have a 
> 'snapshot' of you - you were Good, but now, you're Evil! 
> Decreased granularity can perhaps tackle this; the point is that 
> if you ever PK, PS, or counter one of these crimes, you will 
> *never* be 'normal' again. Punishment is doled out to the Evil 
> (they get bashed by the Good). The Good are rewarded (bounties, 
> and reward money). The Normal.. well.. anyone care to jump in?

I asked my wife this question, and with her explicit permission,
I'm including the log of our conversation (reordered in a few 
places to make it more clear). This touches upon several topics 
the list discussed over the past few weeks.

Note that she advocates a system that is less programatic and
instead relies on real people to provide a framework for a society.
Discussion of punishments was not really addressed, rather the
way to properly distinguish pkillers from the population. In 
general, she is opposed to the idea of pkilling and claims that
she doesn't want to play on any MUD that espouses the practice,
but she also believes that it does have a place in good role-playing.

(I'm NQSChris, she's menagry.)

	NQSChris (12:04:18 PM): Question, off topic, but 
	interesting. In one of the mailing lists I get, 
	MUD-DEV, the question is "how do you reward 
	players for being good/playing well." e.g., some 
	players p-kill, so we can set up punishments and 
	consequences, but how do you reward players who 
	don't p-kill?

	menagry (12:04:55 PM): How about nifty weapons or 
	spells or magical items?

	NQSChris (12:05:13 PM): Discounts at the shops, the 
	ability to be promoted to certain levels?

	NQSChris (12:05:27 PM): Let's say that you let the 
	players have special magical weapons that only 
	work for "good" players.

	menagry (12:05:41 PM): Yes.

	NQSChris (12:05:52 PM): Can, or should, you create 
	weapons that work for evil players? Can you let an 
	evil enchanter make a sword for evil fighters?

	menagry (12:06:17 PM): If they aren't p-killing then it 
	doesn't matter if they are good or evil.

	NQSChris (12:06:59 PM): Ah. How do you define 
	good and evil? Example: thief is evil because he 
	steals from shops. Thief doesn't pkill, though he 
	might knock people out.

	NQSChris (12:07:11 PM): He's evil, but he's not a 
	pkiller.

	NQSChris (12:07:43 PM): Good knight gets into a 
	fight with the evil knight and slays him, but he didn't 
	pkill because he's on the side of good and justice.

	menagry (12:07:43 PM): If he doesn't p-kill then his 
	good/evil rating is nothing.  

	NQSChris (12:07:53 PM): Thief is neutral, then.

	menagry (12:08:35 PM): No, you're classifying things 
	wrong.  A character's good/evil standing means 
	nothing.  If they just p-kill for the sake of doing it, 
	that's different.

	NQSChris (12:09:05 PM): Okay. In Ultima Online 
	(UO), there are a lot of players who got trapped 
	into pkilling, they become evil, and now they do it 
	for the save of pkilling.

	NQSChris (12:09:35 PM): So you would recommend 
	instead saying:  so and so is a good character, so 
	and so is an evil character. and so and so is an evil 
	character who pkills.

	menagry (12:09:42 PM): It's different when anyone 
	goes around pkilling for the sake of.  But an evil 
	player isn't necessarily a pkiller.

	menagry (12:09:49 PM): Yes.

	menagry (12:09:57 PM): evil does not equal pkiller.

	NQSChris (12:10:02 PM): K. You can be an evil 
	priest who worships evil gods, but only sacrifices 
	willing victims/animals.

	menagry (12:10:50 PM): It's a gray area and has to be 
	interpreted case by case but being evil does not 
	mean they are a pkiller.  You need some evil or you 
	have no balance in the "world".

	NQSChris (12:11:15 PM): A lot of games base the 
	idea of balance on the struggle of player vs monster. 
	Players are automatically good, monsters are 
	automatically evil.

	menagry (12:12:04 PM): Yes, but it's no fun if you 
	only have monsters to worry about.

	NQSChris (12:12:57 PM): So p-killing is an abhorent, 
	but good thing because it creates more tension in the 
	player world. It gives them reason to keep 
	interacting with other players, besides the "divide the 
	treasure" games.

	menagry (12:14:17 PM): p-killing is bad (p-killing 
	meaning going around and just killing for the sake of 
	being stupid or annoying or just a jerk).  Players 
	fighting each other (like over some treasure or a 
	woman or a misunderstanding or whatever) is 
	inevitable but not considered p-killing.

	NQSChris (12:15:34 PM): UO, for instance, marks 
	you as a pkiller for a period of time. If you repeat 
	the offense within that period of time, you are 
	permanently marked as a pkiller. But if you instead 
	go off adventuring, or drinking in a tavern, your 
	mark eventually wears out and you are no longer 
	considered a pkiller. Is that a useful mechanism?

	menagry (12:15:35 PM): There is a fine line, like I 
	said.  It isn't just cut and dry.

	menagry (12:16:39 PM): No, b/c some people could 
	be like Sturm and take offense easily therefore 
	needing to defend their honor.  If that happens twice 
	in a row and they get labeled p-killer, they did 
	nothing wrong in the first place and got labeled 
	unfairly.

	NQSChris (12:16:45 PM): We would all like it to be 
	cut and dry so we don't have to keep deciding that 
	"so and so" is a bad guy. :-) We're lazy that way.

	menagry (12:17:21 PM): Well, it's just not that way so 
	you're gonna have to deal.

	NQSChris (12:17:28 PM): :-)

	NQSChris (12:17:17 PM): What about penance? 
	Sturm would definitely consider himself a penitent 
	and seek forgiveness from Paladine.

	menagry (12:18:29 PM): Penance is fine but labelling 
	someone a p-killer for having killed X players over 2 
	days isn't fair.

	NQSChris (12:18:56 PM): UO's model is something 
	like two or three players in 30 minutes. Any less 
	than that and the mark eventually fades.

	menagry (12:19:07 PM): You get my point though.

	menagry (12:19:20 PM): It's not simple.  It needs to 
	be case by case.

	NQSChris (12:19:39 PM): You would recommend a 
	"trial" or somesuch to permanently label a pkiller.

	NQSChris (12:19:51 PM): If someone was playing a 
	good role, such as Sturm, then he wouldn't be a 
	pkiller.

	NQSChris (12:20:02 PM): But if someone was playing 
	Charlie Manson, that character is a pkiller.

	menagry (12:20:18 PM): P-killers by my definition are 
	rather obvious.  Those who fall in the gray area are 
	the ones that need case by case evaluation.

	NQSChris (12:21:02 PM): Okay. So we can apply a 
	metric to determine if someone is, but we can also 
	reverse pkiller status under review and/or penance.

	menagry (12:21:13 PM): Yes.

	menagry (12:21:27 PM): But you can't just say that 
	anyone who p-kills is a p-killer.  It isn't that simple.

	NQSChris (12:21:37 PM): Players involved in combat 
	for role-playing reasons aren't pkillers. Players 
	involved in combat for the purpose of terrorism, 
	bullying, or sociopathic reasons are pkillers.

	menagry (12:22:00 PM): Basically.

	NQSChris (12:22:35 PM): What about the temporary 
	pkiller brand? Say that your party fights another 
	player party over a treasure. You end up slaying 
	four people with your bow...

	menagry (12:23:10 PM): Why are you being labeled a 
	p-killer? That's just part of the game.  I never said 
	players wouldn't die.

	NQSChris (12:23:47 PM): Right, players will and do 
	die.

	NQSChris (12:23:11 PM): You now could have a 
	temporary pkiller brand. But within twelve hours of 
	game time (time you play, not real time), you go for 
	penance you can have the brand removed.

	menagry (12:23:36 PM): That's stupid Chris.  Self 
	defense.  I'm not going for penance for defending 
	myself.

	NQSChris (12:24:15 PM): Pkillers don't always initiate 
	hostilities, though.

	menagry (12:24:15 PM): I'm talking about jerks who 
	go on for the express purpose of going around and 
	killing players to get their jollies.

	NQSChris (12:24:39 PM): Those people should be 
	@gripe-d about, and then the referees should take 
	them aside, brand them, and give them all the 
	penalties.

	menagry (12:25:10 PM): Yes. Otherwise it's no fun to 
	fight players if you're gonna be branded for doing 
	nothing wrong, even temporarily.

	NQSChris (12:25:13 PM): In UO, ferinstance, if a 
	pkiller attacks you in town, the guards teleport in 
	and attack him. Programmed response, and not very 
	discriminatory, IMHO.

	menagry (12:25:32 PM): Good in theory, bad in 
	practice.

	NQSChris (12:25:51 PM): What if another player has 
	a vendetta out for you? They @gripe about you all 
	the time.

	NQSChris (12:26:00 PM): I suppose both sides need 
	witnesses.

	menagry (12:27:58 PM): Yes, it's a case by case thing 
	and people need to be "current" on the players to 
	know who's got a problem and who's just whining.

	menagry (12:27:58 PM): Basically, the game needs to 
	be moderated.

	NQSChris (12:28:33 PM): Regarding 
	moderators/referees: Are they drawn from the 
	player community (ala LambdaMOO) or from the 
	game administrators?

	menagry (12:34:14 PM): Both.

In short, good, neutral, and evil are tags applied to how your
character is role-played. Pkill and not-pkill are flags applied 
to your character by a responsible player or administrator. This 
implies putting power into the hands of the players to dispense 
a form of justice. What the community then does with the 
player-killer is up to the whole, not the whim of the 
administrator.

MUD societies work to a point, as in the case of LambdaMOO. Someone
eventually needs to be responsible that things get done, but with
the proper mechanisms in place, players can dispense much justice
and only rely on the administrators when something needs to be done
that requires permissions or privileges.

Chris




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