From: fink+@CMU.EDU (Steve Andrew Fink)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games,rec.games.programmer,comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: <None>
Date: 2 Oct 92 18:05:41 GMT
Organization: Sophomore, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.programmer: 2-Oct-92 Re: <None> by Wayne
C. McCullough@eng. 
> I thought of a game or modifying a MUD with the following 
> concept:
>  
> 1)  Whenever a new player joins the game, he/she has the option of
> giving his/her services to a 'lord'. (a Player Char, for the MUD
> interpetation of this, players would accend to lords, not Wizards)
>  
> 2)  To gain exp, money, etc, the character would have to do tasks
> assigned by the lord (steel this, kill him, etc, etc, etc).  The
> player char. can gain his own money, exp, etc, but part of that
> goes into the lord's posession (so he can pay off for quests,etc.
> Lords may not spontaneously generate this stuff, though they may
> get an income say from the amount of land he/she controlls)
>  
> 3)  If a player acts against the lord, he looses exp, etc, and the
> lord may choose to disown him, and have him killed.
>  
> 4)  If a player char gets killed, his current money and a % of exp
> goes to the char that did the killing.  So the lord looses a
> percentage of his/her exp.  Therefore, a lord will want to seek
> revenge on any char that kills anyone in his service, to discourage
> any further killings.
Play-By-Mail games have to deal with pretty much the same issues that
are being discussed in this thread. I'm only familiar with one, It's A
Crime! by Adventures by Mail, but it seemed to have a very good (i.e.
the players loved it) way of dealing with all of this:

1) Early in the game, players *could* slaughter each other fairly
easily. However, you were likely to get damaged in the process, making
you an attractive target for nearby competitors. Of course, since this
was a leader of a gang setup vs. a single player setup, it doesn't quite
translate, but I'm all for unlimited slaughter early on.

2) Later in the game, you have to start forming alliances to stay alive.
The most powerful gangs are the heads of the alliances, and they
organize their mob network. So if somebody starts beating up on one of
their proprietary gangs, they can shift resources towards that area to
help out. This is very similar to the Lord concept quoted above. It also
deals with the problem of who the Lords will be (do you let people
choose at the beginning whether to be a Lord or a Knight, or are all
Lords DM-controlled?) It gives the players something to aspire to.

To limit conflicts, the game provided a way to win by either being the
toughest mob in the city by the end of the game, or by being the head
gang inside that mob. This isn't totally necessary if the leader has
some real loyalty from his minions. Remember: leaders don't kill people,
they tell other people to do it for them.

Since It's A Crime was one of the most popular PBM games ever, I'd say
they were doing something right. It all makes good sense to me, too, as
long as you make sure that destroying other players does enough damage
to someone to make them be an attractive target -- no "slaughter one
guy, drink healing potion, slaughter next guy, steal his four healing
potions and drink one, etc."

--Fink
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games