[MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[Travis Casey]

Tuesday, March 06, 2001, 10:01:05 AM, Richard A. Bartle
<richard at mud.co.uk> wrote:
> On 1st March, 2001, msew wrote:

>> well the define it as the "tank role" :) the guy that is getting
>> beat on.  Standing back from the combat is inherently less
>> dangerous.

> Standing back from combat is less dangerous if you do can so in full
> armour. In a system where anyone can wear armour and wield a sword,
> you can take it in turns to be tank. The fighting expert retreats,
> is replaced by the magic expert while being healed, then swaps back
> again.

> If only fighters can wear meaningful armour, the people behind
> aren't guaranteed safe. If the guy being pummeled at the front is in
> such a world of hurt that he has to pull out, the blood-addled
> monsters can flood through to eat the meat that doesn't come in a
> can...

Not only that, but the whole idea of "tanking" is based on the
presumption that (1) foes can't get past the character(s) in front to
attack those in the rear and (2) it's possible to "switch" who's in
combat without significant risk.  While that is a common setup on many
muds today, it's not true of all muds.

(My own favorite, as far as silliness goes, is muds where you can run
into a group of a dozen orcs, have four PCs attack one of the orcs,
and the other eleven will stand around doing nothing until they're
attacked...)

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


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