[MUD-Dev] Re: Mud reviewing

[J C Lawrence]

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999 08:06:58 -0800 
Caliban Tiresias Darklock<caliban at darklock.com> wrote:

> IOW, it solves one problem I have with many MUDs, but it still
> doesn't address another problem which is as bad or worse. How can
> you protect the small fry from the big boys without the big boys
> feeling like their actions are restricted and without the small fry
> being completely secure from punitive action by other players? I
> don't want Big John to stomp on Little Joe, but Big John demands
> that I allow him to stomp on whoever he likes and Little John
> shouldn't be able to thumb his nose at Big John without fear of
> reprisal. I need to make big-guy/little-guy fights not *impossible*,
> but distasteful.

There are many bandaides (eg small-fry always stand a small bu
definite chance of winning battles with large-fry), but I'm ot aware
of any generic handles for the problem.  The only useful approach I've
seen or thought of (it largely comes under "bandaide" as well) is to
ensure that your larger fry are actually playing a different game than
your small fry.  This is usually done by changing the resource
requirements (they compete for different resources), and/or changing
the basic game tokens used by each (ie opportunites to meet and
compete).

--
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                            Internet: coder at kanga.nu
...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...