[MUD-Dev] Permadeath or Not?

[Marian Griffith]

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Thu 14 Dec, J. Eric Townsend wrote:
> Jeff Freeman <skeptack at antisocial.com> writes:

> > Here's a zone with bears and wolves wandering around in it.  You
> > want players to wander around in it hunting for bears and
> > wolves.  But you put a freakishly HARD mob (or two, or three)
> > out there in the zone wandering around with the bears and the
> > wolves. 

> I'm going to show my ignorance here (I've never designed a zone or
> level, and my pencil-and-paper days were a decade ago) and ask why on
> earth anyone would put together such a zone/dungeon/level?

Because it was supposed to provide a thrill of danger?  To prevent the
game to dissolve into tiny groups each oriented towards areas suitable
for their level?  To encourage groups of different levels?

To me it seems not only there is a problem with the design of the
areas, but also that the differences in power are far too great
between levels.

I once proposed, for a mud I was honorary admin on, to create just
this type of areas.  Mix low and high level monsters throughout an
area, with the balance of them determining the difficulty. However I
also proposed to give low level characters an inate ability to hide
from creatures, the poorer their armour, the better their ab- ility to
hide. Bring in dangerous monsters and you suddenly have a very good
reasons for moderately high level groups to bring along a few low
level players to be their scouts, especially if you set the high level
monsters wandering around their base.


Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey

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