[MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Greg Underwood wrote:
> 
> Now, granted, any community will want to divide into sub-groups, but what
> you call those groups, as well as how many you provide can have a great
> affect on how much flavor they add vs. how much they push at the seams of
> what holds the community together.

One of the things I'm adding to my project is dynamic guilds, although I
call them "teams". The way this works is pretty simple.

- A player can at any time form a new team. A password is selected to
authenticate new team members. 
- Any player may join a team merely by indicating a desire to join and
entering the password. Where he got this password is irrelevant. 

- A player may belong to only one team at a time. I have considered
allowing teams to belong to other teams, but that could become
excessively complex.

- Any team member can change the team password. When the password is
changed, all team members must re-enter the password on next login to
affirm their right to be on the team. 

- Items belonging to any team member can be "donated" to the team by
that team member.

- Items belonging to the team can be "taken" for personal use by any
team member.

- Any team member may leave the team at any time, whether to join
another team or to become independent. Any "team" property in his
possession becomes his personal property.

- When a team has only one member, that member may dissolve the team,
taking all "team" property as his own (which it effectively is anyway). 

- When a team has NO members, that team is "garbage collected" and
removed from the game. Shared team property becomes ownerless, and can
be taken by anyone. This will only happen when all team members are
killed. Team resources such as bulletin boards, bank accounts, and the
like are wholly deleted.

Abuse potential is high, but that's part of the game. Guild wars are
easily simulated here: you need only infiltrate the team with a double
agent, then change the password (becoming the only team member) and
dissolve the team. Hostile takeovers can be accomplished by changing the
password and distributing it to a small subset of team members. New
players may be enticed to join the team and donate resources, and the
"core" team can then change the password and effectively steal the new
player's donations. Most notably, independent players may "hack" team
passwords without fear of staff reprisal.

Some form of "leadership" may be desirable in other games to dissuade
much of the above. ;)



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