[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Edward Glowacki]

Quoted from Caliban Tiresias Darklock on Thu, Jun 07, 2001 at
09:24:12PM -0700:

> This may be offset almost completely with a PERMANENT character
> identification, separate from the character's name. Science
> fiction games have a perfect out in the form of captain/ship
> distinctions; while the ISS Hawkstar may be destroyed, Captain
> Darklock can commission the ISS Greywind and go right back out
> there. Then when people see Captain Darklock in a new ship,
> they'll say "what happened" instead of "who are you". Games in
> which you control a

There are other ways to do this in a fantasy setting.

What about given names and surnames?  (Note: I'm not sure what the
norm is on MUDs in general since my MUD experience is limited to one
game that only had single-word character names, and thus no
surnames, but I would guess that something like this has already
been implemented somewhere else out there.)

Your given name is character specific, and you cannot use it again
after a permadeath.  Your surname would be unique in the game (no
two players may have the same surname) and be representative of an
extended family, from which you could build another character.  For
example Biff Orcsmasher dies, then his player takes over his second
cousin Boffo Orcsmasher.  If Boffo dies, a nephew Bob Orcsmasher
becomes the new character, etc.  The family name gives recognition
and the option for transferring wealth and equipment, but the given
name changes to indicate a (perhaps radically) different character.
Extended families could be (by definition) large enough to
accomodate the player forever.  For example, say each household has
20 children or something, with just cousins you could go for a long
time, not to mention aunts/uncles, nieces/nephews, brothers/sisters,
etc.

Here you have a lot of flexibility for creating new characters.  If
you want to recreate your recently-deceased character almost
exactly, you can take on the role of a younger brother who idolized
his older sibling.  If you want someone radically different, you can
play a family member that gets enraged whenever you mention him
being related to the former character.

You could replace "surname" with "clan name" or "symbiotic/hosted
being name" or "soul name" or "spirit name" or whatever, so long as
it appears with the character consistantly.

For example, Star Trek: DS9 has a great system in place using the
concept of a host/symbiont relationship.  There is the character
Jadzia Dax, where "Jadzia" is the name of the host (the previous
host was called "Curzon", resulting in the name "Curzon Dax") and
"Dax" is the name of the symbiont.  Though the symbiont is the same
through many hosts, the resulting character is a combination of both
parts, making each one both similar and unique at the same time.

No matter which system you use, it would be easy to produce rules,
customs, laws of nature, etc. that define what can be carried over
to the new character.  In the case of an extend family, it could be
nothing except the name or it could be all the objects the character
posessed (house, gold, equipment, etc.).  For a symbiotic system, it
could be no belongings (those go to the family of the host) but most
of the skills, or you could keep almost everything except what was
on the corpse of the dead character (if it was devoured, looted,
etc.) using the custom that the symbiont was the one that actually
owned everything.

Pick what you want to happen and define the world around it to make
it so, but make sure it's built into the story in such a manner that
players don't question it.  For example, if you want the new
character to have nothing but the name, make it known that when a
character dies, all their belongings are distributed equally among
the extended family.  You can give them their share of course, if
that's what you want, allow them to choose between the house or the
"+10 vorpal sword of instant slaying", or have them pick their 3 top
choices and randomly give them one of them using the explanation
"another in the family got to choose first because .......".  Don't
want to associate the new character with the dead one, take the
family treasury.  Want to still be known as the best blacksmith in
the land, take the blacksmith shop.  Want to be the younger brother
that takes up his older sibling's quest, take the gleaming
adamantium armor or the +10 sword.


Hmm... that was quite a bit longer of a post than I was planning on
writing... guess once I get started it's hard to stop typing!  ;)


--
Edward Glowacki			glowack2 at msu.edu
"Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword."  --fortune
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