[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN/OPERATION] A rant about NPC ops

[Dave Scheffer]

Peter Keeler <scion at divineright.org> wrote:

> Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:
>
>> (III) I think it encourages "cult of personality" to develop around
>> the ops.  Further feeding their egos at the expense of those more
>
> I tend to agree that it's in poor taste for the op to show up at the
> goodguy party as a villain NPC. It breaks the fiction really badly to
> think ofall the powerful heroes brown nosing to the villain, even if the
> "villain"is nothing more than a temporary avatar for the op. It seems to

I don't see that the villain showing up to a good guy event breaks
thefiction - part of the burden of being a "good guy" is tolerating open
tauntsand there are no lack of examples in comic book fiction of just
this sort ofthing.

At best one can sum up the player reactions as "Good guys who faun
overSuper-supervillains show inconsistent roleplaying".  That's not the
op'sfault.

I'd argue that showing up without the invul flag is actually the
mostdisruptive thing.  Rather than players fauning we'd see players
ganking theop immediately. "dewd I got her stuff!"  The op simply
becomes a pinata for"players who show inconsistent roleplaying".