[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Perma-death

[Peter Keeler]

Dana V. Baldwin wrote:

> 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.

To tell you all something you probably already know, I always liked the
PK system on the first MUD I ever played. By default, PK was turned off
for everyone. If you wanted to, you could turn on a "PK-OK" flag. Once
you turned it on, you could attack other PK-OK players and they could
attack you. While you had your PK-OK flag on, you earned double
experience. There was a simple time limit on how long before you could
turn it off again.

If I were to set up a game with perm-death (to get back to the subject
of the thread) I would pair it with a PK-OK system. Turning on your
PK-OK flag would enable player killing. Turning your flag off would
disable it. Turning on your PD-OK (perm-death OK) flag would mean that
if you die while the flag is on, your character is deleted. While PD-OK
is on, you earn double experience. If you have PD-OK and PK-OK on at the
same time, you earn quadruple experience. Just don't get killed.

It's far from perfect, but it fulfills many of the requirements laid out
earlier in this thread:


1) You can't get killed by a player unless you agree to player killing.
2) You can't permanently die unless you agree to assume that risk.
3) You are informed of the time limit on the flag up front before you
turn
it on, so you know you can't just toggle the flag whenever you want.
4) The benefit of turning each flag on may outweigh the risk.
5) Players don't ever have to turn either flag on, so you can't run
around and kill off the player shopkeepers, nor can you trick an NPC
into perm-killing player shopkeepers unless they're foolish and have
PD-OK turned on... in which case they asked for it.
6) If the players don't like the system, they don't have to use it.
7) It's simple enough for just about anybody to understand (although
they'll still complain when their characters get deleted and their stuff
gets looted... there's no fixing that).

There are two major disadvantages I see:

1) It may be hard to work this system into your game's fiction. If
you're creative though, I think it could be done.

2) It gives a pretty hefty bonus to players who choose to use it. Combat
characters running around with PK-OK and PD-OK flags level up really
fast while everyone else lags behind. You could adjust the bonus or
devise a complementary system that crafters would use and combat chars
wouldn't like (some sort of "can't wield weapons but crafting works
twice as well" flag? A "can't die, but can't move either flag?") that
would even out the playing field.

   Pete