[MUD-Dev] Elder Games

[Kylotan]

Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
>On 03:22 AM 3/14/99 +0000, I personally witnessed Kylotan jumping up to
say:
>>
>>I think one solution is to try and make it so your system does not allow
any
>>single character to master all the different elements to your game.
>>Restricting characters to a single class is the classic example of this
>>(although I personally dislike such an approach). A warrior can never be a
>>master magic-user, priest, assassin or so on.
>
>But then you reach the same problem. You have a player whose character can
>never advance further. Now what does he do? Throw it out and start over? As
if.


Fair comment, and as I said, I personally do not like the system. But you
must admit it is a popular approach. There are hundreds of class-based muds
with no multi/dual classing systems, and several muds that have a remort
feature require you to lose your previous skills. Not to mention there are
numerous tabletop roleplaying systems which lock you into a class for life.
What such a system -can- do for you is to promote the fact that although you
may master your particular set of skills, you may have to turn to others to
draw upon their resources. If done properly, this can promote a wider range
of group activities, co-operation between different classes in order to
complete quests or achieve certain goals etc. Social bonds between players
keeps them coming back even when the 'game' is no longer interesting to
them, in my experience.

Besides, as I stated elsewhere in my post, if it takes long enough to reach
the top level this may never be a problem. Having a system where levelling
slows down significantly towards the higher levels may mean that only a very
small percentage of players ever reach that stage.

Kylotan, who prefers skill-based systems anyway :)



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