[MUD-Dev] The Relationship between pkers and monster AI?

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Fri, 10 Sep 1999, Solmyr of the Azure Star wrote:

> "Sellers, Michael" wrote:
> > 
> > So the question becomes, how can you acknowledge pkilling and include it as
> > *one* component of the game without having it choke out everything else?  My
> > answer thus far has been to make sure that pkilling is not the fastest, most
> > attractive method for a player to achieve their goal; make sure it carries
> > relevant, meaningful risks and costs; and make sure that players can compete
> > with each other in other (often less lethal) ways.  I'm interested in what
> > answers others come up with too -- beyond just "hey, it's a violent game."
> > 
> Personally, I like the way pkilling is handled on Threshold. In it,
> pkilling is technically allowed (except killing of newbies/lowbies which
> is forbidden), but doing so is in most cases considered murder and if
> caught, the killer will be prosecuted by the game's in-character justice
> system, with various possible penalties.

My problem with that is that generally there is no way to one-up the
justice system. Fantasy muds generally take as their model some sort very
fictionalized medieval or classical setting. In these time periods, there
was never any sort of over-arching justice system that was particularly
effective. It was easy to get away with murder, etc. I guess I don't see
why a justice system would be at all effective in the wilderness where
there are no witnesses, for instance.
--matt




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