[MUD-Dev] "gossip"

[Josh Rollyson {dracus}]

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Ok. Heres a slightly diffrent approach to alignment which may be harder
to implement, but
could be made more realistic.

When an alignment altering event occurs, a unique serial number is
assigned to it (more about why in a second). "Gods" would always see
these events, and their perception of the characters alignment would
immeadiatly change.

This serial number would be tied not only to the event itself, but
possibly also to the equipment of a NPC which was killed, and definantly
to the corpse.

NPCs which witnessed an alignment changing event would automatically
record it. The event number would be stored in the NPC's datafiles. This
way we have a way of insuring that alignment is only updated once for
each event.

NPCs passing an abandoned corpse would run a routine similar to the
"Investigation" skill found in many muds to identify the slayer. If
successful, the NPC would then record the alignment change and
associated token.

Now heres the fun part. Intelligant and Semi-Intelligant NPCs would
exchange their tables of event tokens through what appears to players as
normal gossip.

This way, information about a players deeds spreads in a realistic
manner.

Between isolated towns, the alignment might not carry over. Between
closely linked towns, the change would be almost instantanious.

Additionally, at each exchange, the "gossip" would grow less credible. 
So while the first 2 or 3 NPCs in the chain may consider it credible,
others might not, until they hear of similar events, or hear of the
events from more NPCs.

To me this also seems like a better way to brand someone an outlaw, than
to simply set a "murderer" or "thief" flag on them. By many actions, and
not just one single action the players would be held to the course they
themselves had chosen.

Finally, you would need some sort of "decay" principle. As time goes by,
the NPCs would forget about all but the most extreme of actions.
Eventually nobody would remember that Rufus was a thief, except possibly
an NPC from which he had stolen.

On the other hand, some actions are so severe as to become almost
legends. Actions of this type could never be escaped from by the
players.

Finally, "gods" would never forget. They may forgive, but they will
always track a players actions.

--
Josh Rollyson   dracus at irc      dracus at virusfix.org dinodrac at magenet.com
SMS Phone - 3362395619 at message.alltel.com ICQ#31731914
Assistant System Administrator - Valley of the Mage Consulting
http://www.magenet.com/~dinodrac   http://www.virusfix.org
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