[MUD-Dev] Player Justice

[Michael Sellers]

Raph wrote:

> Later on in SWG, we ended up with an elaborate switch
> system. However, there was a remnant of the original system with
> "militia." These are people who are allowed to bypass the
> switch. Named by the local government, they have the ability to
> PvP any target they want, within the confines of the town. They
> are basically police. The system was removed when players
> basically held territory that the designers did not want them
> holding (the entrance to dungeons and the like). There was no way
> to overrun a government, so players could not get back the
> territory that was held.

Very interesting, Raph.  I have to ask though, why was there no way
built in to overrun/change the local government?  It would seem that
any of several mechanisms for doing this would have positive
effects: create an actual and active citizenry; create more gameplay
rather than removing it; and in effect maintain the "PvP removal"
system, adding a governmental scope in addition to the individual
scale.  That is, the message from the rest of the citizenry would
be, "you keep your militia-based license to kill only so long as the
militia overall doesn't abuse it."  Of course when a new government
was installed by the players and the new militia began abusing their
powers, the cycle would begin again until either a) people figured
out how to keep their abuses below the radar, or b) the government
found some way to threaten the populace to keep themselves in power.
Both of these are seen in real life of course.

Mike Sellers
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