[MUD-Dev] Re: Marion's Tailor Problem

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marian Griffith [mailto:gryphon at iaehv.nl]
> Sent: Saturday, September 12, 1998 6:07 AM
> To: Mud Dev Mailing list
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Marion's Tailor Problem
> 
> I would like to emphasise one point, which constantly tends 
> to get over-
> shadowed by the PK/noPK debate. The tailor scenario was not 
> about player
> killing as such.  The question that needs to be answered, in 
> my opinion,
> is: who is responsible for keeping disruptions of the 
> gameplay to an ac-
> ceptable minimum. The victim? Vigilantes? Player militias? 
> The game? The
> administration?
> The most common approach is that it is the victim herself who 
> is respon-
> sible. 

I would strongly disagree. The most common approach by far is that the
administration handles it. Even in MUSHes this tends to be the case:
someone who has the wizbit steps in when someone gets obnoxious. For
many of the means of aggression, eg pk and player stealing, the game
often handles it in proxy for the administration. But systems where the
player is expected to handle it are vanishingly rare. Systems where
players are empowered as proxies of the administration are more common
(eg "proctor" players of some sort who are not true admins).

The issue here becomes one of scale and one of expenses... We all know
the rate of burnout of individuals who are tapped to monitor and control
player behavior. A single glance at a wizlist on a typical mud will show
a disturbingly high ratio of admins to players--it's common to see a 1
to 10 ratio, which is frankly unsupportable (and perhaps this is why
there are always problems on muds which rely on this form of admin).
It's certainly commercially unsupportable. Even the "proctor" model has
real worries in terms of number of managers needed to handle the number
of proctors needed to handle the number of players.

This is why I find it DESIRABLE to find some way to minimize the
administrative load by offloading some degree of policing to players
(note I do not say all). Ideally, you find a way to do this whereby it
fits in the fiction, those who do not wish to police do not have to,
recourse is swift and decisive, the punishments that can be applied have
real significance to them, and the players administering justice require
minimal if any supervision.

Possible? I dunno.

-Raph