[MUD-Dev] Character Restraint & Capture.

[Jester]

Damion Schubert wrote:

> At least in the commercial games, pretty much any feature that
> steals the ability of movement and decision making from the user
> is going to cause ire and frustration.

I agree, for the PKer side of things it's not so much of a problem,
you reap what you sow :) but for strategic player capture the period
has to be long enough to make a tactical difference without causing
the victim too much grief.A fine line...

> A good rule of thumb is that any time a player can sit back from
> his keyboard and say, "Well, now all I can do is sit here for 20
> seconds and watch my character die"... it probably needs to be
> toned down.

Well as for watching their character die, that would kinda defeat
the point of restraint/capture, as firstly the attacker(s) will then
be marked as PKer(s) and secondly the victim will be resurrected and
will be able to immediately raise the alarm, defeating the tactical
advantage of keeping say a general from being able to issue orders
to his troops.

But a point well taken, it's going to be an emotional wrench for any
player to loose control of their character however short-term it may
be.

> What will the counters be?  Can any single individual do it, or
> does it require teamwork?  What are the risks of pulling off a
> 'capture attempt'?

A quick scenario should answer all of the above: "The attacker uses
his hide/sneak ability to await his/her victim, then stepping out
from the shadows/cover performs a 'short-stun'(few seconds) type
combat manoeuvre (whist stunned characters are unable to
communicate) followed by a successful bind/gag restraining move."

More than one person can attempt the initial stun so the odds would
improve for using teamwork to do a capture, but on the flip side
with more people comes the risk that one of them will fail their
hide check and be spotted.

If the initial stun fails then obviously the victim can shout out a
warning and raise the alarm.

The result of the skill check for the restraining move could also be
used as the determining factor for escaping, as the result of a
bind/restraining move will only be shown as a pass/fail to the
attacker, a poorly tied knot could make it very easy for a captured
character to escape.

For a bounty hunter the method of capture is similar but with an
extra step to return the character to the place where they are to be
judged.

Please keep your thoughts coming, as I could use as many views as
possible for this particular tightrope walk :)

Jester
http://www.futuremmorpg.org
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