[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Perma-death

[Michael Chui]

On 6/5/07, Jeffrey Kesselman <jeffpk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/5/07, Peter Keeler <scion at divineright.org> wrote:
> > Dana V. Baldwin wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > 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.
>
> One more effect I can see, which may or may not be a good thing...
>
> (1) Players set for PK/PD at odd hours of the night in order to try to
> get the benefit "for free"
>
> (2) MAYBE some Pkers patrolling for victims at odd hours of the night
> because of (1)
>

That's called emergent self-balancing.

I've seen strategies for choosing what to do based on the time of day
and server distribution etc. happen before. It's not surprising at all.
But, as you know, for every subset that's willing to go out of their way
to deprive others of a resource (in this case, PKers of their prey),
there is another subset willing to go out of their way to retaliate and
regain said resource. It's very invisible handy.