[MUD-Dev] Re: Suggested theme

[Richard Woolcock]

Chris Gray wrote:
> 
> [KaVir at dial.pipex.com:]
> 
>  >Sub-plot:
>  >   Goal: Kill the bad-guy.
>  >   Appeals to: good guys, people who hate King Bubba (Bob's King, and part
>  >      of the plot which this sub-plot runs under), people who own chickens
>  >      (Bob likes to sacrifice them).
>  >   Difficulty: medium.
>  >   Location: Create a small castle for him, near location 850x/900y.
>  >   Main characters: Dread Lord Bob.
>  >   Sub characters: the Black Knights, the prince/ss in distress, the
>  >      strange old hermit.
>  >   Objects: the map to Bob's castle, some hacked-up corpses.
>  >
>  >Then you sort of...erm...mix them all up and...well...can anyone give me
>  >a hand here? ;)  I think I've bitten off more than I can chew this time...
> 
> Sure - just add some behaviours to all of the NPC's, automagically
> build and decorate the castle, set up an ecology and hierarchy for
> the Black Knights, and poof! - instant quest.
> 
> Oh, you wanted more detail then that? :-)
> 
> Seriously - you have got a good start by defining the elements of your
> quest. Now you have to think about more details - what do they all

[snip]

> Basically, take it one step at a time, and be prepared for a lot
> of work. Also try to make any real code you write as generic as
> possible, so that when you want the next scenario, you can resuse it.

I think you misunderstand...I'm not talking about coding specific quests
- that would be easy - I'm talking about coding a system that allows the
mud to develop its OWN plots and quests, of which the example above could
be a possibility.

How would the above example sub-plot be created?  Well, Bob might be a 
randomly generated name+(slightly fuzzy) personality (from a set of
templates maybe?) which was one of Boffo (the player)'s "story hooks",
that the mud assigned him at creation time, and wove into his background
history (which can also be automatically generated).  Suddenly, someone
has completed one of the subplots, so the mud goes off and starts pulling
in bits of story hook from various players.  Bob gets pulled in from
Boffo's background, and assigned under the plot which generated the sub-
plot (the plot being about King Bubba, Bob is assigned as one of King Bubba's
Barons).  The Black Knights get pulled in from Buffy's background (her
parents were killed by the Black Knights), but as they are a 'major' story
hook, they also get filed away for later use (assuming that they don't get
killed in the current sub-plot), or perhaps spawn their own sub-plot under
the current one.  The princess in distress gets pulled in because, in Boffo's
past, he was knighted by her father, thus Boffo gets his chance at a heroic
deed.  The hermit and map get invented purely by the subplot, to help kick
the it into action.

I'm starting to patch together ideas as to how it can be done, but I get the
feeling that this will be a *long* project.

KaVir.