[MUD-Dev] Re: Leaving characters in play

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 14 May 98, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> On Tue, 12 May 1998, John Bertoglio wrote:
> 
> > Would this scale down to a turn every XX seconds?. It might. Especially, if
> 
> I think it was Jon (??) that was talking about doing a turn-based combat
> system with orders, quite a while ago.  I think his example went something
> like:

Aye.  You've captured the part of the flavor of it with your example. 
 
[snip]
> 
> I for one think this would be great.  I've always love order-based combat
> ala the computer RPG Wizardry.  Esentially, it boils down to allowing
> people to decide what they want to do at their leisure (which involves
> second-guessing what your opponent(s) will do), and then watching the
> mayhem ensue in "real time", thus recapturing some of the excitement of
> realtime combat without making it so that the person with the best link
> and typing speed always has a huge advantage.

There are other aspects and reasons for this.  While in-game combat 
can be modal, one can always break out of the combat.  I've always 
hated how automated combat systems continue until one side or the 
other is dead.  I've also dislike terminating combat by fleeing to 
another room or recalling to base.

A great deal of wonderful role-play opportunities exist in situations 
where conflict has come to a head.  The objective of combat is very
rarely to take the life of the opponent.  It is to achieve glory and 
honor.  However there are generally no opportunities for players to 
mutually rest, to trade witty and provacative reparte between blows, 
to make called shots like cutting the cord holding up your opponents 
trousers, or calling it a draw and retiring for the day.   Sure 
there's still a good chance for immediate or slow death, but there's 
also ample opportunities for final words or curses, and protracted 
death scenes.  Why should an automated combat system force Sir Gawain 
to strike a blow on an unarmed combatant when he desires to wait for 
the opponent to retrieve the weapon?

Also, there may be a great deal of OOC dialog between the parties 
before these sequences take place and also some OOC coordination 
during staging of the event.  This is especially handy for larger
free-for-alls.

My game systems are complex enough to make manually refereeing such 
an event a real pain.  And good gamemasters are hard to find when 
you are itching to settle a score.  Once entering the state where 
blows are exchanged, players have implicitly consented to abide by 
the rules of the computer referee.  This also allows any interested 
immortal time to respond and join into fray.

> If all commands *are* orders, does that include everyone in the room, even
> those not in combat?  If not:

Combat mode can be entered and exited by any member of a room.  You 
are prompted whether you would like enter combat through any action
including many socials that might cause "a rush of adrenaline".  Thus 
any action is a potential combat starter and individual commands are 
resolved as actions really occurring.

     Bubba the loathesome troll kisses you. 
     The stench of Bubba's breath is overpowering.  You feel feint. 
     Would you like to enter combat? Y/N
     > N
     Ok.
     > throw mug at Bubba
     You hurl your full mug of ale at Bubba striking him on the 
     forehead.  Bubba falls to the floor unconscious.
	 > buy ale
   
 
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