[MUD-Dev] The Player Wimping Guidebook

[J C Lawrence]

On Tue, 1 Aug 2000 19:26:23 +0000 (GMT) 
Matthew Mihaly <the_logos at achaea.com> wrote:

> I'm sorry, but this just seems like poor design to me. One side
> should never be able to "win" irreparably in a persistent world,
> though it doesn't sound to me like you guys are much concerned
> with player persistence.  

What mandates that player characters muist be persistant in a
persistent world?  Why can't player characters be very temporary
fixtures in a persistent game world?

A model:

  The game is a standard whities vs darkies game.

  Players login and get an arbitrary character on their chosen
  side.  This character is a new creation -- it has no prior
  existance (other than the name the player may provide, or the
  player's account name).

  At a general level, all player characters are both generic and
  identical.

  Player activity from that point forward accrues "status" for their 
  side, and for that player's account.

  Play focus is on accomplishments within a given login (ir a given
  character's life), and not on accomplishments within a given
  account's existance.

The world is fully and irrevocably persistant.  You move the rock:
the rock remains moved for all time unless moved again.  You burn
down the castle: the castle remains burned down...  You however, the
player, you characters in the game, are not persistant.  You are
transitory.  You have no tenure.

Want a presentation model to make this game "more interesting"?
Consider Robert A. Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters" as your back
story.  The players are the puppet masters with suitably modified
mechanics of possession to fit the above.

--
J C Lawrence                                 Home: claw at kanga.nu
---------(*)                               Other: coder at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/        Keys etc: finger claw at kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--


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