[MUD-Dev] Re: Suggested theme

[Richard Woolcock]

Dan Shiovitz wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, Richard Woolcock wrote:
> > Dan Shiovitz wrote:
> > > Furthermore, everyone is needed: the brave high level characters can't
> [..]
> > > And not just warriors, neither. There's an obvious need for healers,
> > > tailors, blacksmiths, and so on, because someone's got to repair the
> > > swords and heal the wounded.
> >
> > The trick here would be to make all of the roles fun.  Perhaps everyone
> > is 'fairly okay' at combat, but also has an additional skill to add to
> > the city?
> 
> Yeah, that's a good point. One idea is to let players do things like
> farming and blacksmithing during their logged-out time and run 'em as
> NPCs. There'd be the possibility of getting killed during this time,
> though, so it might not be worth doing. Hmm.

I've also thought about something similar, and death (particularly PK) is
also my main concern, particularly as I use a form of permideath.  If I
logged onto a mud and got the message:

   Sorry, your 500-hour-old character dropped his car keys down the drain.
   He poked his head down the drain to try and find them, but got stuck,
   and then it started raining.  Within quarter of an hour the water level
   had risen sufficiently to drown him.  Please create a new character.

I wouldn't be too happy.

> > > relatively small distinctions between high and low level characters,
> >
> > This is something I am trying to do, and I think is a very good idea.  It
> > is important to let players have ways to advance their characters, but this
> > sort of system could make characters expand 'outwards' rather than 'upwards',
> > gaining new abilities without really becoming 'better' overall than anyone
> > else.  My method of doing this is to allow players to spend a number
> > of points on abilities at creation time, allowing them to 'max out'
> > in areas they feel are of great importance (so yes, you can start
> > off knowing that nobody is any better at melee than you, for example).
> 
> Hmm, interesting (vaguely reminiscent of the Amber character gen system).
> The idea being that people who buy skills at character creation are
> always going to be better at them than people who buy them during the game?

Actually no, not necessarily.  In brief, my system works like this:

* Choose a primary, secondary and tertiary attribute type out of physical,
  mental and social.  You start with 10/8/6 points to split between the
  three attributes in each catagory, and through exp can reach 12/10/8.
  Each attribute must be in the range 1-5.
* Choose a primary, secondary and tertiary ability type out of talents, skills
  and knowledges.  You start with 13/9/5 points to split between the ten
  abilities in each catagory, and through exp can reach 30/20/10, although
  this maximum is increased by 2*wits (for talents), int+wits (for skills) and
  2*int (for knowledges).  Each ability must be in the range 0-5.

So basically you can start off pretty good in a few areas, but still improve
in other areas.  There are exception to the above, but most players won't attain
that much power without a lot of work.

> > > Oh, and one more while I'm at it. Anyone thought about doing arc games
> > > that it's possible to win? F'instance, the point of the game is to
> > > defeat the Dread Lord Bob. When he's dead, or has taken control of the
> >
> > Ack no!  All the players would say "well, thats it, I've won...time to
> > find a new game".  How many linear games have you gone back to after
> > completing them?  I know some people play Doom/etc over and over, but its
> > just not the same the second time around...
> 
> Doesn't have to be the same the second time around. Once Bob is dead,
> you retire all the characters, write epic songs about the heroes and
> villains involved, and start a new game. Ideally, in the same timeline
> but a couple hundred years later, so the old characters are
> half-remembered legends.

Hmmm now that's an interesting concept.  Ever read Stormbringer?  A bit
more permanent than you're talking about, but worth a thought...

> > One of the things I am trying to work out how to code at the moment is
> > mud-run plots.  The idea is that the mud will run a number of plots and
> > sub-plots, which can be tied in to various NPC's, players, objects, etc.
> > In order to do this I'll probably require players to select a number of
> > 'story hook' options at creation time, to help the mud out.  Your example
> > above, with Dread Lord Bob, might be catered for like:

[snip example]

> These are kinda tricky to get right, yeah. It's popular on current
> dikus to have a tremendously simplified version of this: the

[snip]

> Even your system has the potential to fall into that sort of thing,
> although it's not going to be nearly as bad. I can see stuff like
> "What? The Dread Lord X has appeared and is threatening the citizenry?
> I better go find the mysterious hermit who will give me the map to his
> castle!". On the other hand, there are lots of random variations you
> could put into this. You can randomize the names, obviously (although
> it gets silly fast when names get re-used). You can also alter the
> goals of the Dread Lord (looting, pillaging, trying to take over a
> castle, trying to find a lost artifact ..), and who tells you about
> him, and even sometimes have the hermit be a traitor who leads you
> into a trap. It might be even better to take the plot apart, and weave
> whole plots together out of random sub-plots (the Antagonist who looks
> for Treasure, the Guide, the Betrayal, the Natural Disaster)... Hmm. This
> is starting to sound like Joseph Campbell or the 36 basic plots. Which
> is probably the right level to take this at. Anything more specific
> and I think it'll be too obvious the plots are random.
> 
> Here's a longish article from a friend of mine about the 36 plots in IF:
> (url split onto two lines)
> 
> http://www-db.informatik.uni-hannover.de/dbis/lehre/sopra95/lit/
> info/authorship-guide
> (it lists them midway through, as well as discussing how to use them)
> 
> Here's a shorter one by Loren Miller about the 36 plots in RPGs:
> http://www.io.com/~jlockett/RPG/HEGGA/Stuff/frp-plots.html
> 
> And here's one about heroic archetypes, more in the Campbell line:
> http://bragg.physics.adelaide.edu.au/~iborchar/Arcane/heroes.html
> (this might be a bit too abstract. I'm not sure.)

Thanks, I'll check those out.

> Even with all this, the larger quests are probably going to have to be
> hand-made, but there's no reason you can't use these as sub-quests or
> side quests.

Well my intention is to make a completely automated mud.  My reason?  I
want to play it without unfair knowledge :)

KaVir.