@Groth said:
@AmishRakeFight said:
This also works because MUDs are generally hardcoded for combat. Garbage mobs spawn as part of code and you run at them and your PC dies or the NPC dies and if so, you pick up their drops or their pennies or whatever the reward. Or Arrgh! The Ninjapirate attacks you by typing in 'attack Bob' and you either defend or mash your keyboard as hard as possible as you frantically attempt to flee.
The key thing about making PvP work in a MUSH environment is to make sure that the conflict isn't about stabbing the other characters to death, but rather about trying to get some advantage and while killing your opponents might be helpful, it's also likely not.
On RfK this worked by the fact that killing another vampire was against city law, however murdering all their friends, family and businesses was not and torpor provides a good means to prove you could kill someone but choose not to.
The problem that RfK ran into was that the administration of territories, allies, influence etc didn't scale well at 100+ players, which is something a future conflict centred game can solve during the design stage.
I support this best practice in theory. Punch someone all day long if its justified in character. If you're being a heinous shitlord in character, then you should expect that other people's reactions to this behavior in character could very well include getting clapped about the ears for being a giant asshole.
But.
I don't think the practice gets a lot of successful play. I don't think it has a lot to do with scale. We, as a species, are not good at conflict. We're not programmed as overdeveloped mostly hairless apes to avoid the nuclear button in conflict. Socialization and cultural expectations have conditioned us to appeal to logic and reason in order to avoid conflict. A lot of that of goes straight out the window on the internet, though. Honestly, I think the reason why people avoid PvP in Mushes is because its a total pain in the ass to deal with most of the time. One party rarely if ever takes it well and almost any interesting things that might happen IC are totally washed away in the flood OOC anger and upset that generally results.
So all that's left is negotiated PvP which neuters the entire thing. This neutering isn't a bad thing but it does sort of require people to invent artificial reasons why your PC wouldn't just end this conflict, up to and including straight up murder. That might be fun for a while but a fatigue sets in and it becomes a boring sort unpleasant drudgery. There's little interesting things to be had after a certain point if all you're doing is retreading the same toothless bickering and shade throwing in scenes. You eventually just give it up or avoid each other all together.
Lastly, and I think this is key: I recently read somewhere that as people we want the maximum penalty when people wrong us and the maximum of understanding and forgiveness when we do wrong. I'd say this very much applies to MU conflict.
It's a rare player who can say 'yep, my PC is terrible and deserved what happened'. Most are blind to the effect that their PCs behavior have on other people and its often a shock when they're not responded to as a precious and beloved flower even when they're being a rancid asshole. So, when the pushback comes, they are often upset and stung by another player not being in agreement with their perceptions about how they behave in character.
I've gone back and forth on this in my own thoughts for a long time and I don't think there's much of a middle ground for PvP in Mu. You either plunge forth and take it as it comes or just avoid it entirely.
