[MUD-Dev] Telepathy Rules

[Lawrence W. Homer]

One problem that I have seldom encountered personally is the proper
regulation of IC Telepathy. It is a vital part of various popular themes
from Science Fiction / Fantasy / Superhero Comic Books, and I've often
wondered how you regulate it when one character is a strong telepath and
another character currently RPing with him should not ICly have any defense
against having his mind read.

If I were RPing a character who had anything to hide, and the local rules
permitted a Telepath to insist that I OOCly tell him anything he wanted to
know about my character's IC experiences, plans, etc., then whenever I saw a
Telepath approaching I would run for the hills ICly. UNLESS there were some
pretty strict rules in place limiting what he could get away with. But the
more you limit his use of telepathy, the less thematic you are, because he's
liable to end up never being able to use his powers at all if the rules say
that he needs the OOC consent of the Victim on each and every point he wants
to investigate.

What solutions have been devised for this kind of thing?

Larry Homer