[MUD-Dev] Guilds & Politics [was Affecting the World]

[Stephen Zepp]

[snip]

  That's what we tried to do with the
>> dabbling bit of politics in M59 (the Duke and the Princess); it worked
>> pretty well this way, as far as it went.  
>> 
>
>What if the emphasis was reversed?  Bring the political/social/economic
>game to the forefront.  Relegate the combat/quest aspect to a minor
>sub-game.  What if NO experience or advancement were given for combat?
>What if combat were "realistically" risky, as opposed to the "player 
>assumed to be hero" of many muds?  Would reasons for combat then naturally
>evolve out of an economic/political/social situation?  I'm not talking
>about a mundane economic game where the player is engaged in RL-like
>activity in order to survive, but more a fantasy economic game where the
>player's character has similar advantages as the hero-centered combat
>game.  
>   
>--
>Jon A. Lambert
>"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant" - Plato
>
>

(*gulp*) umm, at the risk of sounding self-righteous or conceited, that's
exactly what I'm doing.  Combat is to be _avoided_, and it the last refuge
of the incompetent.  It's deadly.  You don't heal on your own ( well, over
a LONG period of time ).  Dying is death ( well, reincarnation/resurrection
aside )...you are now a spectre, and can only minimally interact with the
physical world.

What do you get out of fighting, but either a lot of painful wounds, and
maybe some gained skill in your combat manuevers? Well, _maybe_ it's the
only way to remove an obstacle..so be it, if that's the case. But I doubt
seriously that ( in a well defined world ) it's the _only_ solution.

  Okay, so you're probably saying to yourself, "well, what else do you do?
sounds _boring_!!".  Interact.  Adventure.  Explore.  Build your own
kingdom through managing an estate. Aid the ( npc ) Elven Kingdom that is
being overrun by Mothkai.  Watch them kill each other.  Help both sides.
Help neither, and fill the power vacuum when they destroy each other. I
love roleplay, and I love gaming, and I love interacting with others.  What
I don't love is watching a cleric cast better spells by fighing A Red
Dragon 50 times over a period of 2 mud days, or watching a party of players
wipe out the entire population of an area in a matter of an hour or so,
only to go back and do it again an hour later, when they repop.

Heheh...when I was playtesting balance on my own mud, my favorite "role" to
play was the Knight that protected the weak, the vulnerable, and the
victims.  In a hack slash mud, that's the mobs :)

Zoran