[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Travis Casey]

Vincent Archer wrote:
> According to Travis Casey:
 
>> For that matter, if no one was willing to play a game where they
>> could permanently lose an investment, Las Vegas would be a ghost
>> town.
 
> Aside from the occasional compulsive gambler (who gambles until he
> cannot gamble anymore), most of the people who gamble at Las Vegas
> do so with the expectation, if their gamble pays off, to win. Big
> (and they rarely gamble more than they can afford to lose).
 
> That's quite different from most permadeath implementation
> suggestions I've seen, where you gamble to lose.

Hmm?  Anyone gambling and *expecting* to win is a fool.  The games'
odds are in favor of the house, not of the players -- they have to
be, if the house is to make a profit.

You're also assuming that a player cannot "afford to lose" their
character.  It's true that many players are strongly averse to
losing their character and having to start over.  There are other
players, however, who simply view it as a part of the challenge of
the game.

If you want another example of "playing to lose", consider older
arcade video games, like Missile Command, Galaga, Pac-Man, etc.  No
matter how good you are, you cannot play the game forever without
losing your "character" in the game.  Yet people enjoyed (and still
do enjoy) playing those games anyways.

> Richard Bartle's old contributions to this debate (last permadeath
> round in this list) were closer to the Las Vegas example: make
> "gambling away" (risking permadeath) an option (people may opt
> out), but make it so that they can win. They tackle the dragon,
> and win "something" at the risk of their life, and something you
> wouldn't be able to win without the risk.

You have won something -- the ability to say that you were good
enough to get to where you could kill the dragon.  Just as in
Galaga, the only thing I ever "won" by playing was the ability to
say that I was good enough to get to X points.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_     Travis S. Casey  <efindel at earthlink.net>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-' 
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)
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