[MUD-Dev] players who "take away from the game"

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, J C Lawrence wrote:

> On Wed, 10 Nov 1999 12:09:49 -0800 (PST) 
> Matthew Mihaly <diablo at best.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, J C Lawrence wrote:
> >> On Tue, 9 Nov 1999 16:26:11 -0800 (PST) Matthew Mihaly
> >> <diablo at best.com> wrote:
> 
> >> Unless the players are individually responsible for such
> >> militancy?
> 
> > I'm not willing to give any players the ability to delete. 
> 
> I made and make no statement about the ability of players to delete
> other players or characters.  I'm perfectly willing for players to
> be able to make other player's characters unplayable by various
> in-game means however.
> 
> Your shrubs are a case in point.


Yeah, but shrubs essentially equal deletion. Certainly I would never give
mortals the opportunity to shrub people. Again, Achaea is a roleplaying
world. OOC offences are handed ooc-ly, by admins. IC offences are handled
IC-ly, generally by players (which could include admins acting as Gods,
in-role).

> Remember: The purpose of the justice system is not to enact any form
> of real justice or even to have anything to do with justice, but to
> present an interesting and manipulable game system that the players
> can incorprate in their game play in interesting and amusing
> manners.
> 
>   Who really cares about bringing that dratted PK'er to any sort of
> rational justice if you can have a heck of a lot of fun dressing him
> down to size?

Right. I guess I just don't see it working, at least in my world. Players
would find the system annoying. 

> 
> > Basically, there would be trials all day long, and potential
> > jurors would be irritated beyond belief to be pulled away from
> > whatever they are doing to have a trial. It might be fun a few
> > times, but it would soon get tedious I think.
> 
> Yup.  Especially given that trials arriving at guilty verdicts are
> likely to be the single most profitable game activity there is.
> 
>   The bigger you are, the more you have to lose, the more you need
> to defend your acquisitions from the possible (and uncontrollable)
> predations of the jury system and your peers.

Yeah, this is my point I guess. The players in my world are supposed to be
"heros", certainly far more powerful individually than anyone could be
irl. I don't like the idea of forcing someone to stand trial. Why should a
powerful mage, who can just slaughter any guards that a city could send
against him, be forced to stsand trial just because a bunch of nobodies
think he's broken a law? It's demeaning. The mage, by virtue of his power,
is a superior being (substitute whatever powerful character for mage) and
shouldn't be forced to be put on trial. I've actually deleted the original
e-mail now, but my main problem with all this boils down to forcing
someone to stand trial. If the people who want him to stand trial can't
force him to, why should he have to? Similarly, if that wanky judge in
Spain who decided that Pinochet should be tried decided that Bill Clinton
should be tried, how the heck is he going to try Bill clinton? Pinochet is
a weakling now. He's nothing. Trying him is easy because spain and england
are bigger and harder than Pinochet and his supporters. Bill Clinton, on
the other hand, is never going to be tried for his crimes against
humanity, because America is big and powerful and the very idea of putting
anyone who was the president of the US on trial for such things is almost
laughable.

> 
> Remember the bit about false accusations?  If Bubba is getting too
> big for his britches, or just has a bunch of EQ you want, just
> accuse him of crimes until you get a trial, ensure a guilty verdict,
> and then grab everything you can and run.

Right. Again, why should Bubba have to stand trial?
--matt






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