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

[Maddy]

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:
> 
> > No you see -- that's precisely my point.  We will never have "perfect code"
> > like this.  Nor will a game be enjoyable for long if it's up to the
> > GMs/sysops/etc to zap people from on high.  This is why I called it
> > *social* engineering.  We can't create code to make sure that no one annoys
> > anyone else, but we *can* create code to make sure that the players can
> > create their own social mechanisms to deal with such situations.  We can't
> > provide technological or central-business-oriented solutions to what are
> > inherently distributed social issues.  
> 
> 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.

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.

Maddy