[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Perma-death

[Dana V. Baldwin]

Peter Keeler wrote:
> Dana V. Baldwin wrote:
>
>  
>> We often hear "everyone wants to be the hero but not everyone can be the
>> hero". What if everyone doesn't want to be the hero. What if some of
>> them are content to hang out in toewn and not fight monsters or be
>> adventurers at all. What if some of them like to go on nice safe patrols
>> with decent rewards and low risk. What if those that want to be the hero
>> get a shot at actually BEING the hero, as long as they can stay alive.
>>    
>
> That sounds great and I totally agree with you, except for one thing
> that Dave Scheffer said awhile back. I liked it so much I wrote it on a
> sticky note and stuck it to my monitor:
>
> "The problem is the game world not recognizing aberrant behavior and
> providing a compensatory game mechanic."
>  

Agreed. I like this. I'd add "there's no such thing as griefing there is
just a missing or incomplete feature" and also "there are no bugs just
bad implementations". 

> [snip]
> The problem is that one guy who decides to level his fighter up, then go
> through town perm-killing all the guys like me. Old MUDs used to make
> the shopkeepers the buffest mobs in the game for precisely that reason.
> Later games made them non-attackable. Making them PCs introduces a
> dilemma because you have to protect the crafter from griefers, but still
> make the game dangerous.
>  

I was not clear. I did not make the assumption that players could
purposely kill other players. If you were using a perma death system i'd
think this would be bad feature as you note. In general it is a bad
feature even in non perma death games but I've always felt that the
reason was more to do with the lack of consequence. In Uo for example a
dread lord rarely had to fear for his actions and something such as more
roaming uber guards that could kill that dread lord or imprison him
until a bail was paid, and used to recompense his victims, might have
helped. Who can say. point is that, yes, allowing another player to kill
other players is probably not a good idea. Perhaps non-consentual PvP
would be relegated to the highest levels of advancement. If you want to
advance to level 20, be aware that you are now fair game, or some such.