[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Vincent Archer]

According to Travis Casey:
> Vincent Archer wrote:

>> 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.

Sure. But people never expects the law of averages to apply to
*them*.  Besides, the house also sets winnings high enough to be
attractive. Sure, precious few wins them.

What I was saying is that most arm-chair designers propose
permadeath in a form that would be like playing at Las Vegas, if
they won, they kept their money, if they lose, they lost it.

> 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.

As I said in another message, relatively few (compared to the
masses).  For most of us, a character has a fairly big investment in
it (usually, the largest investment in the game, if you're playing a
single character).

> 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.

Your Pac Man was as good (or as bad) after a 1h game as it was when
you started. Losing it meant losing 0 investment in the game. All
you derived from the game was in your own skills (yeah yeah, I
know).

> 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.

Sure, you've won something. The trick is, you must tailor the win vs
the odds, vs what you lose. If the win is too minimal, the ones who
are going to "win" aren't the heroes. They're the gamblers.

If you want people to take a risk, you have to set the stakes and/or
risk low enough or the reward high enough. Otherwise, there's no
permadeath, since people will not take the risk.

--
Vincent Archer                                         Email: archer at nevrax.com

Nevrax France.                              Off on the yellow brick road we go!
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