[MUD-Dev] Character Restraint & Capture.

[Paul Schwanz]

Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Mar 2004, Paul Schwanz wrote:
>> Matt Mihaly wrote:

>>> And then how does this have any effect? If you can just stay out
>>> of these other cities at minimal inconvenience to yourself,
>>> where is the justice?  How does this help control PKers who are
>>> offending other players' out-of-game sense of justice?

>>> It doesn't. It provides for some potentially interesting
>>> mechanics, but it does not address the issue the original poster
>>> was concerned with at all, which is fulfilling an out-of-game
>>> sense of justice (ie you shouldn't be able to kill me over and
>>> over just because I'm a dwarf. I am, after all, paying to play
>>> your game.)

>> There's certainly a sense of justice for the people in the city
>> whose laws were violated and who enacted the ban.

> *boggle* We have these systems in place in all our games. Using
> these city powers isn't about 'justice' for most players. It's
> about manipulating them to cause the maximum amount of pain to
> your enemies. For instance, cities have been known to lure (using
> various methods from coded methods to just just convincing them
> to) others into their city and then declare them persona non grata
> after that person is in the middle of the city, then call the city
> guards to kill the 'intruder.'

*boggle back* And you couldn't figure out a way keep that from
happening?!?  Perhaps the guards don't kill you withing the first 30
minutes.  Rather, they just "escort" you off the city's territory.
You seem to be confusing poor implementations with poor concepts.

>> Even if the PKer isn't particularly inconvenienced by having a
>> single city declare him persona non grata, at least that city no
>> longer has to worry about him causing further grief in their
>> territory.  If the city has a treaty with other communities
>> whereby bans are enforced throughout, then justice gets even more
>> teeth.

> I don't get what this idea of 'justice' you have is. What you are
> doing is giving players a weapon and then apparently trusting that
> they will use that weapon in accordance with an out-of-game sense
> of justice. The only places I have seen this work are places with
> a high level of admin oversight (an RPI mud, for instance).

My concept of justice here is simply to give weapons to the
community that trump the weapons of the individual.  That community
may be a republic, where the community is represented by an elected
official, or it may be a true democracy.  It could even be a
monarchy, since the monarch's power would still be tied up in her
ability to attract and retain citizens.  In any case, the grief of
the individual is held in check by the power of the community, and
the power of the community is dependant upon how many individuals it
can attract and retain.

>> In the end, the system functions as a form of access control as
>> much as a form of justice.  Access control is a concept central
>> to any security system, yet is curiously lacking at the community
>> level in many MUDs, which may explain why community members don't
>> experience any sense of security.

> Yes, exactly. It's a weapon and you're trusting players to use it
> responsibly. Good luck with that. ;)

Not at all.  The individuals already have plenty of weapons.  You
can set up a model where the only recourse for limiting their use of
those weapons to constructive gameplay is to appeal to an admin, but
I don't think that such a model scales very well.  Alternatively,
you can set up a model where individuals appeal to the community and
the community handles much of the justice.  In such a model the
admins are freed up to concentrate on addressing issues of community
injustice instead of having to address every injustice toward
individuals.

--Phin
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