[MUD-Dev] Reputation & Trust Circles [was UO rants]

[Michael Tresca]

Matt Chatterley wrote on Saturday, August 26, 2000 12:05 PM
> In a city: Bob is picked up by the guards for murdering Ned, and
> punished. Its entirely possible that Jane will get away with the rare
> sword, unless someone with a claim to it is somehow able to report it
> stolen. In any case, Jane will probably not be bothered unless she goes
> back to the same city, with the sword, and it is wanted by the guards
> (which is unlikely).

On RetroMUD, we originally had alignment-aggressive guards.  Players made a
big stink about how a monster could possibly know their alignment and be
aggressive to them.  The more we thought about it, the more we realized that
not only don't other intelligent beings know a PC's ethics on sight, they
probably judge him entirely by something else: his threat to their physical
being.

So we don't have alignment aggression anymore (except for rare holy/unholy
beings who have magical senses to detect such things).  Instead, we have
"threat" aggression.  Wielding a weapon in front of a guard is a bad idea --
they'll tell you to put it away when you enter, and after that, if you have
it out, you're looking for a fight.

Some weapons you can get away with -- depending on your reputation (paladins
won't be harassed by good-aligned beings who know of his sterling
reputation), just how menacing the weapon looks (the higher the weapon
class, the more likely to cause people running or attacking the PC), and the
nature of the weapon (staves have to have a much higher weapon class than
swords).  All intelligent monsters react this way -- based on threat alone.

If a player is foolish enough not to unwield (new players get caught by this
significant difference frequently), then he can become wanted on that world
by killing a guard.  If he dies to the guard, his wantedness is reduced by
one.  In addition, we have an arrest system, which inflicts everything from
being pilloried to having your tongue cut out (we had one mute player who
was very proud of his inability to use the "say" command).

> In a 'lawless' area: Bob and Jane both get away scot-free, unless friends
> of Ned suspect them, and give pursuit. Or in a situation where Ned
> returns from the dead, he chooses to exact his own revenge.

Unless the "lawman" flag is set on monsters, the law is not notified.
Therefore, players can attack non-city beings (although they don't have to
be in a city to cause wantedness) with impunity.  Or they would be able to,
except we also have slayer code.  As players attack a monster type, word
gets out.  If they do it enough, monsters will attack or flee on sight
(depending on level).

> 1. Give newbies some leeway with the guards. Unless they commit something
> which is defined as a serious crime, give lenient sentencing, and/or
> allow an appeal system of some sort.

Newbies are immune to the weapon aggression, although they are warned about
it.

Wantedness is based on world -- to reduce it, the player must die once each
time for each death he caused, or be arrested and face sentencing.  In this
case, all of his crimes are judged at once, he is punished (permanent stat
loss, long term imprisonment, etc.) and released, with a clean slate.
Because there are six worlds, players can hop from world to world.
Eventually, the law catches up to them and they stop -- the more wantedness
accumulated, the worse the punishment when guards finally do arrest them.
Additionally, the ethics on each world are different, so what causes
wantedness varies from each world (Paladins may be wanted on Crypt, the
world of undead, but heroes on Welstar).

Wantedness can also be reduced by the Sentinel guild (the aforementioned,
"not particularly effective in policing players" guild).

All of these changes had to be implemented as the problems cropped up and
players pushed the envelope of what was and wasn't allowed.

Michael "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org
telnet://retromud.org 3000




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