[MUD-Dev] New Topic: Butthead features

[coder at ibm.net]

On 02/09/97 at 09:35 PM, Martin Keegan <martin at cam.sri.com> said: >On
Wed, 13 Aug 1997 clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote:

>> In <199708050723.CAA13294 at dfw-ix3.ix.netcom.com>, on 08/05/97 
>>    at 08:06 AM, "Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> said:

>> >I'd be interested on your thoughts on legal systems.  
>> 
>>   The jurors would be told that the system will teleport them to a
>> court room at a pre-defined time (30 RL mins later) in the future to
>> stand judgement.
>> 
>>   The juror list is openly published at the same time.
...
>>   Shortly before the trial commences all jurors are so warned.

>It might interest you that on a certain mud I shan't bother naming,
>there was a very similar court system.

As you may note, I borrowed the spirit if not the implementation.

>Much more interesting from a design perspective was the effect The
>Courtroom had on the game - a room into which players were frequently
>transported presented all sorts of security problems. It had to be
>made a no-fight, no-steal, no-summon zone, when the sheer number of
>players being taken there off guard made it the crime capital of the
>whole game.

This is why I made the selection of jurors minimal and random.  This
way the level of prediction on *who* would be selected would be an
unknown.  Then allowing jurorship to be traded would allow for
pressure/persuasion games to attempt to ensure that XXX was/was not on
the jury.  Similarly, the delay before sumoning to the court room
removed the unpreparedness.

As for the crime capital -- isn't that the point?

>Since jury service provided free teleportation, it was used to
>subvert quest security. If a player needed to complete a quest but
>was in a region from which there was no available exit, he (and it
>was largely males who tried this) could log on a second character,
>commit loads of sin (which was easy - you just needed to say
>"abermud" ten times and you were sent to court), and hand over the
>vital objects he was carrying to his number two whilst the trial was
>in progress, before they were whisked back to their previous
>locations.

Which is why I instead added the caveat that the accused was visible
to the jury, but unable to do anything but talk.  Sure, the plant
could then take the objects from his other character, but the other
jurors would likely see that and. err, disagree...

Thus also the rule on no limits on what objects are brought into the
courtroom or recording of what occured in a court room.

>Of course, I only decided this was a problem AFTER I'd finished those
>quests :)

Verily.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...