[MUD-Dev] Character Restraint & Capture (bounty hunting)

[Jester]

On 2nd March 04: John Buehler wrote
> Byron Ellacott writes:

> The reason that we have courts in the real world is to convince a
> jury of who did what to whom and why they did it.  The code of law
> decides the appropriate punishment.

You cannot hope to model the complexities of a 'real world' law
system into a game, in the game world you can only determine the
instructions the player sent the game via its interface and not look
beyond that to the INTENT (which is the backbone of most legal
systems) of the player.  The game world also lacks another critical
element EVIDENCE, the very thing a jury bases its conclusions on.

The reason I choose player killing as the only 'crime' is that it is
(in comparison with other crimes) black and white, either you
initiated an attack another player or you didn't (causing or
contributing to their death).

You can go by the American code of justice in large part.  I'd
rather go with one where justice isn't related to how much you can
pay your attorney ;)

>Assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault, murder, and so
on.

The system is linked to loss, if the player is attacked but not
killed then apart from the time it takes to regenerate those HP they
have lost nothing, if however they are killed (suffering whatever
penalties death has in game) and their corpse looted then they have
suffered much more of a grievance.

>The NPC judge does offer the possibility of roleplaying a judicial
>system, but it also imposes the requirement that a victim visit the
>judge.  That could be onerous to the victim.

It shouldn't be too difficult to get to a judge especially given the
incentive that bounties can generate income for a city. Also
'traditional' resurrections spots have usually been placed on city
doorstep , so not far to go.

> That would produce lawless areas, which might be >self-defeating
> to the original intent of the game - to have a code >of law.

Far from being a weakness this could add a richness of diversity to
a game world, where at one end of the spectrum you have a upstanding
ultra-strict city and at the other sleazy criminal cites like the
pirate ports of old.

Players are not restricted to which city they place a bounty at, it
would be an open choice.

Consider also that a bounty hunter can go anywhere (within usual
limits), so capturing a criminal hiding out in 'shady city' would be
more hazardous, but the bounty might be high enough to risk it.

Jester
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