[MUD-Dev] An idea for breaking away from the HP/Mana mindset

[Jeremy Hovance]

> Original Message from "Eli Stevens" <wickedgrey at wickedgrey.com> on Sun, =
2 Apr
> 2000 16:28:12=20
>=20
> I had gotten rid of explicit Charisma. I didn't like the idea of =
characters
> with
> high Charisma being played by annoying people, so instead...
> =20
>=20
> Reputation:=20
> Presence: how dramatically/forcefully the character fills a room.=20
> A high presence means that the character gets noticed more in crowded
> situations, is more likely to be heard, etc. It also makes it harder to =
hide.
> Clothing can alter it, as clothes with keywords/description containing =
words
> like "gold", "silver", "royal", "silk" etc. would raise the stat, and
> clothing
> with words like "drab", "brown", "grey", "servant" etc. following it. =
NPCs
> are
> more likely to obey high presence characters.

I've seen a detailed clothing system like that already implemented on
Firan MUX. Instead of modifying a specific characteristic however, the
mechanic revolves around a flucuating pool of Social Points which forms
the basic weapon for a social combat system.=20

The more points you have, the more known you become. There's a command=20
lists the top 50 people in the city's social standings (without listing=20
social points). The tradeoff is that you have to spend your points to
exert influence, such as gain access to information, affect current
fashion, gain social class, ruin other's reputations, etc.

Fashion works by having a list of clothing oriented words "blue, silver,
wool, iron, gold". Each word has a certain number denoting popularity with
it. Social points can be spent to either raise or lower a current =
word's=20
level, which very slowly drops (or raises) to zero over time if left
alone. The effect is dependant on social/fashion skills (which are
required to affect fashion), social class and social points spent.=20

The review command is used by a player to compare their clothing to=20
someone they are speaking to, in an attempt to take some of their social
points from them if their clothing is more fashionable. (ex. Person A
wears red (+500) silk (+1000). Person B wears black (-200) wool (+50) =
with=20
gold (+1200) bracelets. Person A is more fashionable.)=20

Social Points are gained by doing social things, like holding a party,=20
using the singing or dancing skill in a large gathering of people, =
getting=20
a sponsor of a higher social class (which gives you a portion of whatever
they get), holding a title, donating to charities, eating expensive foods,
using the debate command to hold debates in public, etc.

There's many other coded systems like economic, personal combat as well as
mass army-vs-army war, birth, sleep, legal and other social imperatives
that are detailed on the web page=20

http://www.legendary.org/~firan/=20

but the helpfiles on MUX are the most detailed reference.=20



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