[MUD-Dev] Re: combat

[diablo at best.com]

On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, J C Lawrence wrote:

> On Sat, 30 Jan 1999 18:29:20 -0800 (PST) 
> diablo <diablo at best.com> wrote:
> 
> > Assuming I'm playing a sadistic player, why would I not just kill
> > the person? 
> 
> Usually becasue actually killing another player's character is either
> difficult or involves repurcussions to your character that are
> unwelcome.  Quite a bit of fun can be had on the repurcussion side:
> 
>   -- make the character increasiningly unlucky or difficult to
> advance/play.

This seems like the sort of thing that players term 'unfair' and is
generally accepted by them as unfair. 

> 
>   -- make the character increasingly unable to defend against attacks
> from characters played by that player in the future.

Same as above. It doesn't make sense to say that you'd learn more from
dying to me than I would from killing you. And, if enough time passed
between the combat encounters by players A and B, then presumably (I'm
speaking in in-game terms here) their fighting styles would have shifted
enough so as to make the specific knowledge gained from fighting the other
guy not so valuable anymore.

> 
>   -- increment some sort of "sin" value which (dependent on threshhold
> value typically) raises some sort of feared threat (eg Island's court
> system).  

This one I like.

> 
>   -- In M59 style, launch revenants against the killer.

I don't know what revenants are, but that sounds pretty arbitrary. I don't
think players like arbitrary. If you couch the "bad-ass, justice-dealing
NPC comes after you" in terms like a court or guards of a city, then
players are mostly willing to accept it.

<much text about combat snipped>

Your proposed combat system does sound interesting from an entirely
different angle than what I was speaking of. I can see how the rush of
trying to avoid getting killed as a several-hundred-hour character is
quite potent. Your system is different enough from mine that I don't have
any of those small doctrinal quibbles with it. In fact as you described it
the only thing I think I wouldn't like is the lack of continuity in
character (basic complaint of mine with perma-death systems I guess). I
like history and to see players play a long time, etc, even if they are
semi-rabid killers. Still, every system has its disadvantages and yours
sounds like a lot of fun.

I was not aware that MUD2 had people sinking hundreds into a character
they could permanently lose. I suppose if players started knowing they
could lose their characters it might be ok, but it's really the sort of
thing I would personally hate as a player, and so it's something I'd
rather not do. (doesn't fit in with my system of combat anyhow)

--matt