[MUD-Dev] Re: PK and my "Mobless MUD" idea

[Marian Griffith]

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Wed 06 May, Adam Wiggins wrote:

> On Wed, 6 May 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:

> > What is to prevent such gods from creating a simple monotonoous series 
> > of rooms, connected by doors corridor style.  Each room contains a
> > weapon and a guard one step up from the one before...
> > We're looking at the minimal case for a hack-n-slash.  The problem is
> > that the minimal case is unplayable.

> Not unplayable -just awfully boring. :)

Actually I have in the past run a quest that is remarkably like this
scenario.  A string of rooms each one with a stronger monster in it.
Two teams of players were dropped at either end and started to fight
their way in.  A very bad monster would chase them slowly,  so these
teams could not get back, and had to be fairly fast at dispatching a
increasingly strong opponent  (actually I had the number of monsters
increase which was easier to do and worked -much- better than having
to find a range of monsters). In the middle the players can find the
quest price and a key to the only exit. The first team to make it to
the middle gets the price and may decide to allow the second team to
leave or not. It was quite a popular quest for those players who did
not like the all out player vs player battles.

> Then add lots of dependencies between creator and createe.  For instance,
> Bubba the God has N god-points (mana, if you want) availible to create
> each day.  He saves up his points for three days and then creates
> StormBringer, Blade of Chaos.  Not only does he want to try to get the
> blade into the hands of one of his followers, but he wants to make sure it
> will be a follower that will use it regularly.  For you see, StormBringer
> normally sucks down n (where n < N) god-points each day.  The only way to
> end this is by destroying the blade, which takes (for instance) the same
> number of god points to destroy as it did to create.  However,
> StormBringer is a vampiric weapon - it *gives* Bubba up to 2n god points
> each day, as long as it is allowed to suck the souls of powerful enemies.

> Throw in lots of other nice relationships - for instance, gods aligned
> with Lifeforce energies loose a number of god-points equal to the number
> drained by any vampiric affect in the game - and now you've got the
> makings of some serious heavenly battles.

*giggle* You -are- evil aren't you?

> At this point you throw in lots of arbitrary rules to make it difficult to
> use god-powers in a straightforward way.

Better yet, disallow the gods to directly affect the players unless they
are willing to sacrifice (permanently) a number of their creation points
to power the affect.  So to create an avatar out of a player the god has
to part with some of his own power, which is then granted to the avatar.
Except of course  for the simple protection spells.  Priests can pray to
their god and,  provided the god has creation points left,  be granted a
blessing or sanctuary. Until the god revokes the spell.

>  This both rewards clever
> players and brings the mysterious motivations of the gods into the fray -
> which we already know is lots of fun from Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and
> other pre-monodeity religions.  Ie, Buffy tells her followers that she
> wishes that they seek out the evil blade StormBringer and hide it
> somewhere where no one will ever find it.  The followers don't know why
> she wants this, but she promises to reward them well, so they obey.  While
> invading the stronghold of Biffy, follower of the evil god Boffo, they are
> beseiged by Boffo-summoned frooblegiants.  The situation looks grim, and
> they call on their godess for aid, but she ignores them.  "Why, oh why?"
> they cry out.  Little do they know that godesses of Lifeforce cannot hear
> prays from their followers who are within one-hundred meters of a
> Firbiggle Crystal during full moons.  Biffy just happens to have a
> Firbiggle Crystal in his throneroom, since it allows *his* god to have
> extra powers on alternate Thursdays of the month...

> I think this defintely could be cool, if you set it up so that being a god
> was as much a 'game' as being a mortal, it just involved a lot of creature
> summoning, dungeon creation, object creation, trap setting, etc.  Note
> that the areas you'd end up from this would be classic hank-n-slash-style
> dungeons and fortresses.  I don't see this as a problem.

It also allows players who finished the game by reaching the maximum
power available to ordinary characters to do something constructive.
I never quite understood  why players who were stubborn enough to go
through the entire game were considered possible admin for that game
nor why they were allowed to hang out and annoy the other players by
stealing away all the 'nice' equipment.
This way you pull them out of the game  and throw them into the pan-
theon of gods as very minor characters again.

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey


--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.