[MUD-Dev] Crime

[Ben]

    Recently many people have posted on crime and punishment.  I decided
that instead of reading through each and posting my ideas, I would just post
my opinions and thoughts on the matter in a seperate thread.

    First off I would have to describe crime.  Crime to me is any action
commited by an entity against another entity that has a negative outcome AND
that the entity against which is being commited disagrees with.   Basically
this means that anything I do to you, that you didn't want me to do, and/or
doesn't benefit you, is to me a crime.

    Now, appropriate punishments on a MUD would include things such as not
being allowed in certain towns, not being trusted with loans(if your MUD has
a system for loans) etc... anything that requires a trust.  Maybe certain
weapons wouldn't work for you, maybe you couldn't be healed by priests,
because their GOD won't allow it... who knows...

    After this we have to decide how to work a system of deciding how
trustworthy you are.  Basically you would need a flag on an item, if i type
"drop item" it removes the flag.  If someone picks up a flagged item (i.e
one that fell or was stolen) and doesn't return it to me, they are
untrustworthy.  Also killing me and other similar actions result in their
trustworthiness going down.  As this happens, my reputation can likewise be
going up due to other events, but anyways enough of how to get a reputation.

    Another important factor to consider is, what do you do if nobody was
there to see the crime, or if the one person who witnessed it, has left?
Well, you can't actually record it.  This is the hardest part.  Deciding how
to record and/or punish the crime.  You need to have at least a degree of
player intervention here.  Without it, it doesn't make sense.  If I don't
report a crime, no one knows it happened.  If I don't prosecute for the
crime, nothing happens to the person who commited it etc...

    Another factor is how do you handle events as the reputation changes.
As you move farther away from neutral, each negative/positive action
probably has more of an impact.  If I am considered divine, stealing
something would be a huge loss to my reputation.  But if I was just sorta
good, it wouldn't.

    Anyways, a complex system that weighs how untrustworthy certain things
are is required.  A simple solution doesn't exist.




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