[MUD-Dev] Re: Marian's Tailor vs. Psychopaths

[apocalypse at pipeline.com]

Me (shakti)
>> set_bit(player,no_pk); /*This player does not wish to attack,
>> or be attacked
>> by humans*/
>> It could also encompas attacks by charmed mobs, and "flame channels"


Raph:
>It also doesn't work in a simulationist environment. There are too many
>ways to circumvent the flag simply using the laws of physics. The
>example cited here before was dropping a large boulder on someone. You
>can solve all of these problems by starting to break the laws of the
>sim, but then you have two laws of physics operating in one world and
>that leads to problems of its own with consistentcy and special
>advantages afforded other players.


Not at all. You dont have to break any laws of physics, simply apply fate,
chance, luck etc. And since luck and chance can never be said to have
one value and has never (and probably will never) been physically
defined into physics (random principle supports this, but you cant give
it a real, constant value) it violates nothing. The boulder falling? oops
Mr. pk-target just happened to slip on a piece of grass and fall out
of the way, or oops the boulder fell on him, but the god of chance took
pity on him and caused it to become cork. You could do this also not
at the target, but at the person who initiated it, oops, you slipped and
fell,
and the boulder rolled back onto you. The only ways to "circumvent"
this are the ones that the game designer allows, thru purpose, or simply
forgetting to "fix" that one. And unless you let something into the code
it cant be done, so things like the boulder wouldnt even be an option.

Raph :
>Also, there's social factors; as you scale up in size, you'll get more
>people attempting to circumvent the flag. Since doing so is pitifully
>easy (Player A hires flagged player B to kill flagged player C; flagged
>player C hears about the true killer and rightfully says that the flag
>was circumvented in intent if not in practice--this is just one example
>of many) your admin calls start to skyrocket.


Uh, if intent were a crime, we would all be in jail. Intent(motive) is used
to prove the conceivability that an action already occured, not
to punish someone based on intent alone (there MUST be :
motive, action, evidence). "Mala in se" (crimes of thought or word, as
defined by the dept. of criminal justice services(DCJS) and federal /
state laws) are no more punishible than blinking.
Sure, you can be punished  for "conspiracy to commit",
but unless there is action then it would be so much hot air,
it would be heresay, and definately "mala in se".
Plaintiff: "Yea billy bob planned to kill me!!"
Judge :  "can you support this accusation with any evidence"
Plaintiff: "Uh...yea, i know he thought about it! and he tried to hire
                jimmy to do it, fry him!"
Judge :  "So he...thought about it...But nothing ever transpired?
                 Case dismissed, lack of physical evidence. Corpus Dilecti".

You cant be punished for having bad thoughts about someone, virtually
or RL. And the above example relies solely on intent, since neither
tagged player (after careful construction) can harm the other.

The example of that flag contained no background. It would
encompass the whole range of ways to get a player killed.
No charmed mobs, no spell tagged as "aggressive", which
solves the spell problem, add a bit to the spells, and classify those
appropriate as aggressive, that is that can alter a player in a
"damaging" way, damaging of course is the opinion of the admins,
and any other cicrumstance, without having to be unduly
"long in the checking".

Raph :
>The statement was made before that violence will occur on your mud even
>if you don't support a combat system. The classic case to point to is
>the LambdaMOO case described so well in Julian Dibbell's article "A Rape
>in Cyberspace"--a link should be in the FAQ. This sort of violence is
>also completely impossible to block using the flag you described above.
>:(


Yep, verbal abuse is completey immune to that flag, but a set of conditions
fixes that. Have a "flame channel" (if you like of course), where people
can verbally mince words outside the channels the "innocent" people hear.
Make it like any other channel in that it can be turned off. If someone
wants
to rant and rave, take it to flame. If they get caught doing it on "common"
channels, then define a set of punishments you like.

Me (shakti):
>> All the player
>> has to do (if its coded) is request that non-pk flag.

Raph:
>Which works pretty well at small scales (though I'd note that I have
>seen plenty of problems with it in muds of 80--it was certainly a top
>admin call on Legend for a while...).


Maybe its time to re-structure the flags parameters. Ive been admin/coder
on some large muds also, so i can relate directly your statement.
But , players have a tendancy to just complain about a "virtual"
abuse of something as they see it. No matter what rule it is,
there will be a sufficiently long list of people who will "whine" about
its implied infringement that its just impossible to try to cure.

Me (shakti):
>> Again, just because they PK in no way means they are not social.
>> Hungry wolves eat their own kind...does that mean they arent
>> social? no..they are highly social.


Raph:
>PKers don't kill other PKers, in my experience. That is, they tend to
>kill the ones who are most vocally loud about being PKed, because that
>gives the greatest thrill. They don't tend to kill the ones who are
>willing to die. :)
>Wolves eat sheep, not wolves.


Yep, mostly they try to inflict the most damage, and that is usually on
people who scream loudest about not wanting to die. But if they
are blocked from doing so, they will cause trouble elsewhre, and
eventually get booted for a violation of some other rule.

Wolves eat wolves if there are no sheep. A hampster mommy will
eat its own offspring, and then lovingly tend to the remaining
infant. A pirahna will eat its own kind (fish are some of
the most social animals alive).

Me (shakti):
>> I thought the point of a game, was kind of like therapy. To escape,
>> and deal with outside issues, by doing things that you cant do
>> in everyday life. What about the healing process of releasing angst
>> through gameplay? Humans have done that since the dawn of time.


Raph:
>This is a very valid truth. But "your right to swing your fist stops at
>the end of my nose." The other players may well be there for reasons of
>their own, not to serve as a punching bag for someone else to relieve
>tension.


True, but if the non-pk construct is designed well enough, there wont
be any unwilling punching bags.

Shakti