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

[Matt Chatterley]

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On 26-Jun-98 Maddy wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Jun 1998, Marian Griffith wrote:
> 
>> On Tue 23 Jun, Mike Sellers wrote:
>> 
>> > At 11:11 PM 6/22/98 -0700, John Bertoglio wrote:

[Ker-snipple]

>> True that you can not (entirely) force people to play nice  by making it
>> impossible  to be anything else.  However providing mechanisms for other
>> players to deal with the social misfits 'on their own terms' plays right
>> into their hands.  You made the game  which was intented a nice roleplay
>> environment into something that fits the killers. Even players who don't
>> want to fight others are forced to,  because  that is the only way there
>> is for them to protect themselves. So in a sense the killers have won.
> 
> Why do these mechanisms have to require the players to even lift a sword? 
> A truely well written roleplaying game, will provide characters with the
> facilities to create jobs that are needed.  Cities could hire characters as
> watchmen, to catch and prevent crime.  Travellers could hire bodyguards,
> Lords could build armies to conquer the evil that exists beyond the city
> walls, thus providing more land for farming and housing.

Yup. This is where it gets hard to support things in code, unless you view 'The
Big Picture (tm)', and manage to rig up sufficiently generic systems to support
yourself (one example is simply the ability for characters to give objects and
money to each other - that takes care of the code-side of employment). A lot of
this really boils down to social structures, something which many will attempt
to simulate with code, something which does not always work.
 
> You basically end up with an economy with not only allows the trade of
> items, but the trade of services.  You may even find that some/most of the
> killers will prefer to be bodyguards, as from the original article it looked
> (IMHO) like they only became killers because the alternative of being a
> tailor was boring.

Yeah. One problem with the service trade is your player spread. If they're
sparsely spread and unable to coagulate into good groups, its often very
difficult for them to be together in relevant force/amount, at appropriate
places, and to play together (although good RL/OOC organisation can help, of
course). A tricky one, to be sure.

- ---
        -Matt Chatterley
        http://user.itl.net/~neddy/
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.." -John Lennon (Imagine)

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