[MUD-Dev] Fear of magic (was:Usability and interface)

[Marian Griffith]

On Sun 26 Oct, Derrick Jones wrote:


> On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Marian Griffith wrote:

> > On Wed 15 Oct, Michael Hohensee wrote:

> Even if I had a plausable explaination for an omnipresent militia, I'd
> also be faced with the daunting task of coding a 'realistic' and effective
> capture mechanism.

I don't know about coding things but it can't be so hard to have a realistic
way to arrest people. It happens all the time of course? You just need some
way for your police to restrain people. Things like shackles and handcuffs?

>   Mages present an especially problimatic scenario, as
> they have the option of teleporting beyond the reach of the law...

Why? If the police employs mages they have the same option. Or they can
prevent the gate from opening, or from closing behind the mage. There's
any number of things you can do to solve this I would think?

> Players escaping by normal means can be tracked, followed, and hunted
> down.  The only difficulty there is with the following scenario:
> 	>kill Boffo
> 	You place your hands around Boffo's neck and begin to squeeze.
> 	You hear a voice shout 'Hey, unhand that woman!'.
> 	Boffo unsuccessfully attempts to pry your fingers from her thoat.
> 	An armed patrolguard runs in from the West.
> 	>flee west
>         You release Boffo and run west.
> 	The patrolguard shouts 'I'm gonna get you, Bubba!'.
> 	>quit
> 	connection closed by foriegn host.
> The solution, of course, is to demand that my players remained connected
> 24-7..maybe take stats away from them for time spent in RL...(cackle).

Why not put a criminal on the wanted list if they run off this way. Then
they must disguise themselves on return or risk being recognised and ar-
rested next time they connect?

> More realistically, just force _characters_ to remain in-game even while
> the players are away...It becomes difficult to balance on a PK mud, but
> managible if you allow players to create scripts and defences to use in
> place of human input.

That's a possibility also even though it would make it impossible for
somebody like me to play your game.

> Mages, (or any other character with access to spatial distortion style
> magics--i.e. teleport spell), can, instead of quitting in the previous
> example:
> 	>flee west
> 	You release Boffo and run west.
> 	The patrolguard shouts 'I'm gonna get you, Rasputin!'.
> 	>cast 'blink'
> 	Suddenly, you're standing across the street.
> 	The patrolguard shouts 'Rasputin!  Stand still!'.
> 	>cast 'teleport' home
> 	You stand inside your house.
> 	>enable defence   /* turns 'on' house defences */
> 	Your house is now protected.
> 	A portal begins to open.
> 	There is a flash of light as your house defences close the portal.
> 	You hear many footsteps approaching.
> 	>look outside
> 	You see your carefully manicured lawn.
> 	Many patrolguards stand here.
> 	A patrolguard falls into a pit-trap.
> 	[...many dead patrolguards later...]

Of course nothing would prevent the patrol guards to send for a mage or
two to disable your magical defenses.  If the city allows such defenses
in town in the first place. Or the mage would place a magical dome over
your house that prevents you from leaving?

> The problem here is twofold.  1.)  Magical travel is instanteous and
> doesn't leave tracks, so its next-to-impossible to catch a mage with a
> head start.

This is only true at the moment. Most books which involve magic have it
leave some kind of residue on the caster that can be tracked by another
mage. And if the player can portal to another player easily then so can
the mages of the guard.

>  The guards have to be able to react quick enough to prevent
> the mage from casting, else the mage can get away.

This is always true when dealing with a mage.  But it is questionable
if the magic should be instantaneous.  That is how it works now but I
guess it would not be that hard to have powerfull or difficult spells
take time to be casted. Just make them a succession of lesser spells,
as has been suggested before (I believe with casting fireballs).

> 2.)  If player manages to get their character to its house, it has to
> be designed to prevent determined PC's from entering (protect PC's from
> afk PK), so a NPC won't fair all that much better.

Just hire a better mage?

> Basically, I'd have to create a near-omniscient, near-omnipresent, and
> near-omnipotent police force protecting this anti-violence zone, but such
> a force would by its nature overrun and control the entire mud-world to
> impose its doctrine of non-violence everywhere.  While this could be an
> interesting twist to the mud's theme, its not what I'm looking for.

I don't understand how you arrive at this conclusion but no doubt I am
missing something.

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey