[MUD-Dev] Non-combat advancement and roleplay

[holding99 at mindspring.com]

At 07:07 PM 7/3/01 -0700, J C Lawrence wrote:

> This assumes that disguises are inherently impenetrable.  Why not
> allow disguises which can be seen through, partially seen through,
> or even setup to be potentially recognised by the human player?

The reason I asked the question (on disguises) was in part because
the discussion (on reputation systems) seemed to be heading in two
directions: a character based reputation system, and a player based
reputation system.  While I think both are a good idea, I also see
problems. For example, as I stated before, if a reputation system is
character based, how do you handle disguises? As John Buehler
pointed out, one way of dealing with that is to tie some sort of
"identity" to the reputation. While I think that this is ultimately
the only way disguises could realistically be implemented with a
reputation system, I immediately forsee griefers creating as many
different disguises as possible (each with a different reputation)
in order to tie up system resources. Perhaps the "abstract
generality" JC Lawrence suggested would solve that potential
difficulty. I have to think more about how that would work.

With player reputations, why should a roleplayer be punished for
playing an "evil" character, if it is well done? With an account
system, one could play an angelic paladin crusading for the defeat
of evil with one character, and a vile necromancer looking to
destroy the world with another. Such a reputation system would have
to be based upon some generally understood and accepted definition
of roleplay which would be comepletely separate from the actual
actions of the character. (IE, if Boffo the evil necromancer comes
up and kills me, I have to recognize whether or not he was
roleplaying his character well, and not be swayed by any emotion I
might have about my death.) Perhaps understandably, I am reluctant
to think that most players have the ability to make an unbiased
decision in such a situation (except for perhaps the already RP
intensive mushes). So, in a more GoP game, such as any of the big
three, or any game aspiring to the same sort of widespread
acceptance, is there a place for such a player reputation system?

So which is best (if either one is)? Player reputations or character
reputations? I personally prefer character reputations, because they
are by definition in-game, but I can see the utility of player
reputations as an administrative tool.

All in all, I must say that the implementation I have liked best was
John Hopson's player driven reputation system, which allows the
players to decide what's important to them. Perhaps such a system
could be tied into factions or guilds in order to somewhat limit the
number of possible reputations that could be generated (So if you
want to give someone a bad reputation, you need to belong to one of
the political powerhouses, or start one of your own).

T.H. Cooke

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