[MUD-Dev] Character evolution

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <199708312030.QAA08132 at polaris.net>, on 08/31/97 
   at 01:46 PM, "Travis Casey" <efindel at io.com> said:

>coder at ibm.net wrote:

>> Of all the membership of this list, other than myself and Nathan, are
>> there __ANY__ not doing a fairly standard variation on a fantasy
>> world?  

>Well, my current mud project is on hiatus right now, not having a
>site to work on, but it's not fantasy, it's SF.  The short version is
>that it's a post-holocaust cyberpunk world with psionics and aliens
>mixed in. The long version follows... feel free to skip it if you
>want.
...
>The mud will open twenty-two years after the Sshiran left.  The first
>generation of powerful psis are now approaching thirty, and the
>second generation is just starting to come into adolescence and
>manifest their powers.  Technological advancement has more than
>recovered from the  blow it was given by WW3, thanks in part to alien
>technology.  Humanity has had contact with at least a half-dozen
>alien races -- and none of them are "humans with strange foreheads."

Is there a deliberate realtion to the Wild Cards series?

>> True.  It is for the same reason that so few have read "The Well At
>> Worlds End".  Its adherance to the actual structure of its time is so
>> authentic (including language) that few have the perseverance to get
>> much further than, "Uhh, yeah.  Weird words."

>Exactly.  As someone (I forget who) once pointed out, the few Western
>movies which tried to actually portray the American West as it really
>was in the 1800's were commercial failures.  The ones which did well
>were those that used characters with modern attitudes in an
>ostensibly "Western" setting.

My favourites on that score are the "don't shoot men in the back" and
the amazing accuracy of weaponry.  Standing out in the middle of the
street waiting for the other guy to plug you counts as dumb.  Dumb
doesn't survive well, and can even be said to be selected against. 
The civil war infantry fatalities showed that rather well.

Sharpe's rifles were and are accurate.  The tails of picking flies off
a buffaloes back on the horizon are not much exagerated.  They also
had barrels the length of small footbal fields.  There's a relation. 
A handgun was lucky to hit a barn door at ten paces, let alone a
hundred.  I've seen estimates of 150 - 500 rounds per injury (ie hit
the other guy), let alone fatality.

>> On the same chord, I've long wished to do a game based on Laumer's,
>> "The man in black."  Such a personal hounding by a diety and creator
>> is intensely attractive to me.  The problem of course it that no
>> everyone can be the Man in Black with his single nature.

>Was that a novel, or a short story?  If so, do you know a collection
>it can be found in?  Laumer is one of my favority writers... 

I was pretty certain that was Laumer when I mentioned it.  I'll check
and report back here.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...