[MUD-Dev] curses and grief players

[stoddart at slip.net]

> From: Greg Miller <gmiller at classic-games.com>
>
> What's fair about admin-controlled systems? "I dislike you, so I'll ban
> you." "Kill-stealing is allowed, but PK isn't--if you don't want to be
> kill-stolen from, go play somewhere else." "You must wear what I
> consider your best eq at all times or be banned" Those are real rules
> from real muds. As a player, I find them unfair. Other players may find
> my preferred rules unfair.

If a mud has a bad admin then it's really irrelevent as to whether or not it
has a player controlled justice system or not.  The admin can still do
whatever they want, for their own personal amusement.

On the other hand a good mud admin normally doesn't have a stake in player
affairs other than a consideration for the 'best interests of the mud'.
Thus they're much more likely to be impartial than players whose primary
interest is their own amusement.

> Hence, it's necessary to give the victims an opportunity to deal with
> the bad apples.
In my experience it seems as though what normally happens is that a
'controller' type character gets control of the 'power' and uses it for
their own amusement.  Whilst this can result in the players banding together
to remove the abuser it seems even more likely to result in the (quite
possibly unfairly) persecuted player leaving the mud because most people
play to have fun, not to deal with abuse.

'Mud Cop' is, of course, one of the most stressfull activities for an admin.
Moving policing to players might be a good thing, but only if the admin
doesn't then get the (inevitable?) headache of dealing with players running
rampant over the player police system...

Strom




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