Political Systems
darren...@hotmail.com
Hello everyone,
First off I'd like to know if what I'm doing is unique. I want to have
players of a certain level have the ability to be granted Castles and land.
They will be tasked with running the castle on three basic levels. These are
economic, military and political. Each castle may reside in a kingdom or not
if they are maverick players "Ie don't belong or don't want to belong to a
kingdom.". Players can sware allegience to the crown and follow the rules of
fuedal societies. Ie Remit taxes to the crown, pledge mitilary aid, enter into
trade agreements etc.. Eventually players will be able to have other players
become thier vassles thereby increasing thier rank within the kingdom. They
could even become king/queen some day. War will be available as an option
between castles, against the crown or against other kingdoms. This has become
a massive undertaking for me and I'd like to open a discussion here as to what
is possible and relevant in such a system. I'd also like to know if others
have tried this. I'm not above learning from others mistakes and successes.
What sort of Political, Military/War systems are available out there? What
are thier good points? Where do they fail? Has anyone implimented a Castle
system similar to the one above? What did you learn?
If anyone is interested in working on this with me please email me (
darren...@hotmail.com ). It's my own personal opinion that muds have been
overlooking politics as an essential part of imaginary environments. This
could stem from my lack of experience with all the muds out there and if so
I'd like to hear about it!
-Batzing
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
Alan Schwartz
<darren...@hotmail.com> writes:
>Hello everyone,
>
> First off I'd like to know if what I'm doing is unique. I want to have
>players of a certain level have the ability to be granted Castles and land.
>They will be tasked with running the castle on three basic levels. These are
>economic, military and political. Each castle may reside in a kingdom or not
>if they are maverick players "Ie don't belong or don't want to belong to a
>kingdom.". Players can sware allegience to the crown and follow the rules of
>fuedal societies. Ie Remit taxes to the crown, pledge mitilary aid, enter into
>trade agreements etc.. Eventually players will be able to have other players
>become thier vassles thereby increasing thier rank within the kingdom. They
>could even become king/queen some day. War will be available as an option
>between castles, against the crown or against other kingdoms. This has become
>a massive undertaking for me and I'd like to open a discussion here as to what
>is possible and relevant in such a system. I'd also like to know if others
>have tried this. I'm not above learning from others mistakes and successes.
Personally, I'd aim for simple and elegant mechanics/relationships
from which complex and interesting interactions can *emerge*.
For example, some possibly interesting principles:
1. Political power is based on followership. The more total people following
you (including people following your followers), the more powerful you
are.
Variants: The more people following you directly, the more powerful you
are; some combination of the two; some non-linear function of the two
(like log followers) so that order-of-magnitude really matters.
Nice properties: my power is the sum of the power of my direct
followers; their power is the sum of the power of their direct
followers, recursively. Someone with no followers has power 1.
Political power is exercised to influence issues like taxation levels,
granting of new lands, border disputes, criminal justice, etc.
2. Economic power is based on the peasantry/land and taxes. The more
peasants/land you directly control, the more powerful. Everyone
gives up some portion of their economic resources to their liege lord.
Variants: trading of other scarce resources to benefit both trade
partners; duties on declared trades (possibly avoided by smuggling) etc.
3. Military power is based on the number of soldiers you have,
as well as those of your followers and your liege, who is bound
to aid you in time of war.
Maintaining soldiers requires spending economic resources.
The more military power you want, the less economic power you
have unless you start taking over other peoples' territory.
Starting with such relationships, your players can make a variety of
decisions which will have far-reaching effects that they may not
initially appreciate, which is interesting. For example: I'm a
new lord with some decent land but militarily weak. Should I attempt
to become a vassal of the Crown or of a more minor local Duke/Duchess?
The Crown might want higher taxes; the local liege might demand that
I invest more in soldiery so that I can help him/her fight another
minor potentate. If I choose the Duke and later learn that the Duke
is smuggling to avoid the Crown's taxes on trade, should I help
(possibly in return for a bribe?) or should I report the Duke to
the Crown (possibly in return for the Duke's lands if the Crown
decides to sends its armies to enforce the trade laws)? Knowing
these possibilities, is smuggling worth it? Etc.
This is far from a complete system, and I'm sure you'll see things you
don't like. My point is really that if you set up some simple
(quasi-mathematical, but non-linear, so that the overall interactions
are complex and difficult to anticipate) relationships and some incentives
for players to try to gain as much power of all types as they can,
the results may be very exciting.
Good luck!
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Javelin@Belgariad, and elsewhere | PennMUSH Server Maintainer
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Jay at ARNet
Batzin/Darren:
I love this topic. I'll respond briefly below.
darren...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> [Is] what I'm doing unique[?]
> I want [players] to have the ability to be granted Castles and land.
> They will be tasked with running the castle on three basic levels.
> ... economic, military and political.
> Players can [swear] [allegiance] to the crown and follow the rules of
> [feudal] societies, [e.g.] [r]emit taxes to the crown, pledge
> [military] aid, enter into trade agreements etc.
> Eventually players will be able to have [others as] [their] [vassals]
> thereby increasing [their] rank within the kingdom. They
> could even become king/queen some day. War will be ... an option
> between castles, against the crown or against other kingdoms.
> This has become a massive undertaking for me and I'd like to open
> a discussion here as to what is possible and relevant in such a
> system. I'd also like to know if others
> ...
> If anyone is interested in working on this with me please email me
> (darren...@hotmail.com ). It's my ... opinion that muds have been
> overlooking politics as an essential part of imaginary environments.
> This could stem from my lack of experience with all the muds out
> there and if so I'd like to hear about it!
>
> -Batzing
>
Politics and social structures have been substantially, but not
entirely, overlooked. I am still in the midst of writing up my
own socio-political system for general publication here, but I
think you are definitely on the right track. You'll find numerous
allies posting/lurking here, including JC Lawrence, Dr. Cat,
Holly Sommer, Raph Koster, Nathan Yospe, and Marian Griffith,
to name but a very few.
Ultima On-Line has made a few pretty good efforts along those
lines already, to give a really flameworthy example.
But I _really_ think this is the way to go. I think the social
and political systems need designing and creating to answer one
of the bigger questions in mudding, so often asked -- "what is
there to do besides killing and solving puzzles?"
I'm working on posting my "things I think should be in all muds,
with no pretense to substantial originality" soon, so I can rid
myself of the thought/design/theory part of things and get down
to coding it. Honestly, it'll be "Real Soon Now (sm)."
---addendum---
Hmm, now how to make this thread really live on? I mean, why
can't a really fruitful thread on something positive like this
get a really nice life of its own just like those incredibly long
threads that pop up from time to time in these groups? I've got
it! Need to abuse a few people. Need to take an outrageous stand
and defend it against all comers. No more "my distinguished
colleague so-and-so!" No more Mr. Polite guy!
Okay, let's see. Who are some nice targets here? Aristotle,
George Reese, Jon Lambert, maybe Russ Taylor and all those folks
I mentioned earlier? Ya, okay, let's see if I can't find a few
outrageous comments and abusive remarks so that we can get a
few hackles raised, eh? Here goes:
* Aristotle, George, John, Russ, et al: You are all neanderthal
addle-pated know-nothing sesquipedalian maladroits and misanthropes!
Hmm, not really sharp enough, eh? And besides, all those words
probably open me up to accusations of pedantry. Okay, how about
abusing a code base?
* DIKU has always sucked, and is permanently in a state of suckhood!
* LP sucks even worse, and its adherents suck to the suck power!
* MUSHes are demonstrations in futility, surrounded by hopelessness,
edged with despair, accented by ennui, and no fun either!
Or maybe strutting about accomplishments:
* I have more people connecting to MY mud just to create new
characters at any time of the day or night, than the sum total
of all connections and all pfiles, active or inactive, to your
useless, irrelevant mud!! (note use of two exclamation points
to secure extreme increase in emphasis. nowhere NEAR as
intense as three exclamation points, I am sure, but then I'm
a newbie at this sort of thing)
Sheesh, I hope these help. I really want to see this be a nice long
thread. Don't you?
--
>------------------------ for my proper email address, remove the ---+
Jay Sax // Cimri 'no' and 'spam' from my reply-to address.
Alternate Reality Net ----------------------------------------------<
Peter Register
>
>> Players can [swear] [allegiance] to the crown and follow the rules of
>> [feudal] societies, [e.g.] [r]emit taxes to the crown, pledge
>> [military] aid, enter into trade agreements etc.
>> Eventually players will be able to have [others as] [their] [vassals]
>> thereby increasing [their] rank within the kingdom. They
>> could even become king/queen some day. War will be ... an option
>> between castles, against the crown or against other kingdoms.
>> This has become a massive undertaking for me and I'd like to open
>> a discussion here as to what is possible and relevant in such a
>> system. I'd also like to know if others
>> ...
>> If anyone is interested in working on this with me please email me
>> (darren...@hotmail.com ). It's my ... opinion that muds have been
>> overlooking politics as an essential part of imaginary environments.
>> This could stem from my lack of experience with all the muds out
>> there and if so I'd like to hear about it!
>>
I'd be interested in seeing how other people handle some of the
political/social elements on muds, as well. On Nightmare we've taken the
stance that nearly all social/political systems (class councils, mud councils,
etc.) should be player designed with little to no hard coded support (ok, we
added methods for voting, and so forth). We admins forcing our ideas of the
political/social landscape on the players, while possibly adding continuitiy
of vision, smacks of artificiality.
We've run up against the problem of elected players complaining they do not
have the power to enforce council decisions (the council can make and enforce
player laws (different from mud LAW (harassment, multiple characters))).
There is generally a great deal of whining that they don't have a command that
would allow them to arrest violators and so on and so forth. Their complaints
are in a sense justified because Nightmare implements a limited PK policy so
if the violators simply stay out of the PK areas they are pretty safe from
whomever feels like enforcing the laws of the council. At the same time, our
real world law enforcement don't have a handy command to arrest/fine violators
of the laws.
How do other muds deal with the issue of letting the political and social
environment evolve based on player choice verses implementing some type of
official system (feudal, democratic, whatever)???
-peter
Murmur @ Nightmare
<mur...@visi.com>
Jason Goodwin
In article <Kf241.1034$c92.5...@ptah.visi.com>,
Peter Register <mur...@visi.com> wrote:
>On Nightmare we've taken the
>stance that nearly all social/political systems (class councils, mud councils,
>etc.) should be player designed with little to no hard coded support We
>admins forcing our ideas of the political/social landscape on the players,
>while possibly adding continuitiy of vision, smacks of artificiality.
I have to agree, unless of course the theme of the mud demands it :)
>We've run up against the problem of elected players complaining they do not
>have the power to enforce council decisions (the council can make and enforce
>player laws (different from mud LAW (harassment, multiple characters))).
>There is generally a great deal of whining that they don't have a command that
>would allow them to arrest violators and so on and so forth. Their complaints
>are in a sense justified because Nightmare implements a limited PK policy so
>if the violators simply stay out of the PK areas they are pretty safe from
>whomever feels like enforcing the laws of the council. At the same time, our
>real world law enforcement don't have a handy command to arrest/fine violators
>of the laws.
I hate to suggest something I consider obvious, but how about making
an issue warrant command? it'd require a small addition to the pk
code to allow people to, er, enforce the law on those players that
have been deemed criminals, no matter where they are.
Abuse is possible, but, the abuser might not be in power for long :)
>How do other muds deal with the issue of letting the political and social
>environment evolve based on player choice verses implementing some type of
>official system (feudal, democratic, whatever)???
Personally, IMHO, the nugget has to be planted somewhere, and the lines
drawn about what is acceptable (can mortal law overide Mud law for
instance) I think the Admin should take great care in setting up an
initial government and getting it started, then just let the players
run with it. (maybe stepping in when things get too out of control :)
darren...@hotmail.com
> I'd be interested in seeing how other people handle some of the
> political/social elements on muds, as well. On Nightmare we've taken the
> stance that nearly all social/political systems (class councils, mud councils,
> etc.) should be player designed with little to no hard coded support (ok, we
> added methods for voting, and so forth). We admins forcing our ideas of the
> political/social landscape on the players, while possibly adding continuitiy
> of vision, smacks of artificiality.
Actually, in a historical context, players "citizens" had very little control
over thier government types. Short of revolution they had little ability to
change it. On my mud I think I'd like players to be confronted with a system
they can play within or towards ending if they so choose. I think some
structure is good but you make a good point in saying that it should be
flexiable and players should be able to attain positions of power. My vision
is the players could eventually become king/queen and the path leading to this
point should be long and convoluted. I also see there being several government
types with associated benefits and cons. I'm choosing feudal Europe as my
modal but obviously slanted to a more democratic vision of it.
> We've run up against the problem of elected players complaining they do not
> have the power to enforce council decisions (the council can make and enforce
> player laws (different from mud LAW (harassment, multiple characters))).
> There is generally a great deal of whining that they don't have a command that
> would allow them to arrest violators and so on and so forth. Their complaints
> are in a sense justified because Nightmare implements a limited PK policy so
> if the violators simply stay out of the PK areas they are pretty safe from
> whomever feels like enforcing the laws of the council. At the same time, our
> real world law enforcement don't have a handy command to arrest/fine violators
> of the laws.
I think the town guards should handle these events. The laws should be posted
and if players violate them the should be arrested on site by the town guards.
Penalities could consists of fines, loss of skills, required quests, time in
jail... it's really only limited by your imagination.
What I hope todo is make law enforcement an NPC issue. The council could issue
an arrest warrant to the local guard captain. The guards would then be
reponsible for the arrest. It leads to a whole bunch of cool possibilities...
What if you kill the guard? What then are the result of your crime? What if
you avoid the town? I think it would make the world more captivating... Again
these are only my opinions...
> How do other muds deal with the issue of letting the political and social
> environment evolve based on player choice verses implementing some type of
> official system (feudal, democratic, whatever)???
I think a clearly difined political structure can be used by the players.
Maybe you only start out with NPCs in these positions... eventually players
take over. When they rule the land they can change government types. I think
you'll need stewards in this case. NPC that will act on behalf of the player
while they are away from the world. What do the rest of you think?
Larnen
Jason Goodwin wrote:
>
> In article <Kf241.1034$c92.5...@ptah.visi.com>,
> Peter Register <mur...@visi.com> wrote:
>
> >stance that nearly all social/political systems (class councils, mud councils,
> >admins forcing our ideas of the political/social landscape on the players,
> >while possibly adding continuitiy of vision, smacks of artificiality.
>
>
do not
>have the power to enforce council decisions (the council can make and
enforce
>player laws (different from mud LAW (harassment, multiple
characters))).
>There is generally a great deal of whining that they don't have a
command that
>would allow them to arrest violators and so on and so forth. Their
complaints
>are in a sense justified because Nightmare implements a limited PK
policy so
>if the violators simply stay out of the PK areas they are pretty safe
from
>whomever feels like enforcing the laws of the council. At the same
time, our
>real world law enforcement don't have a handy command to arrest/fine
violators
>of the laws.
social
>environment evolve based on player choice verses implementing some
type of
>official system (feudal, democratic, whatever)???
On Elephant Mud, we allow council to place a bounty on the head of
people who break the council rules. Their own internal rules say that
at least 4 councillors need to vote for such a move, but there is no
code to enforce this. With a bounty on their head, a player can be
attacked by anyone, anywhere. In general it works pretty well, although
a key factor is that by unanimous vote, a councillor can be voted down
by the rest of council, which avoids one bad apple running riot.
I think the only problem you have is that without some kind of system to
limit movement (ie some form of commands / second, movement
points etc), is that it's very *very* hard to catch someone who is
expecting an attack, unless you can get them in one hit, or in some way
stop them from running. Once someone starts moving, especially if they
have some kind of client-side fastwalking, catching up, without also
relying on a client, is almost impossible. It is this difficulty, ie
catching
rather than *killing*, criminals that in my experience leads to the
calls
for some form of 'insta-arrest'.
Larnen
Peter Register
>
>I think the town guards should handle these events. The laws should be posted
>and if players violate them the should be arrested on site by the town guards.
>Penalities could consists of fines, loss of skills, required quests, time in
>jail... it's really only limited by your imagination.
>
We at one point had a system whereby the council could send out NPC guards
after violators. Problem was that our high players could dispatch the NPC
guards and we didn't just want to make them unkillable or have an auto-arrest
situation as that takes most of the fun out of playing a rogue type player.
The player council has had trouble understanding that we don't _want_ them to
be overly effective. They complain about because they make laws prohibitting,
say, attacking shopkeepers within the town...and then get annoyed because evil
or thief characters don't follow the new law. OF COURSE they don't. :) We
wouldn't _want_ them to.
>What I hope todo is make law enforcement an NPC issue. The council could issue
>an arrest warrant to the local guard captain. The guards would then be
>reponsible for the arrest. It leads to a whole bunch of cool possibilities...
>What if you kill the guard? What then are the result of your crime? What if
>you avoid the town? I think it would make the world more captivating... Again
>these are only my opinions...
This could possibly be done better than we did it ages ago (its not currently
implemented on Nightmare). I wish you well on the project. It does have many
interesting roleplaying possibilities. I hope I'm not the only one who enjoys
seeing threads like this in the groups as opposed to the mindless "You suck",
"no you suck" threads too common. ;)
>
>
>> How do other muds deal with the issue of letting the political and social
>> environment evolve based on player choice verses implementing some type of
>> official system (feudal, democratic, whatever)???
>
>I think a clearly difined political structure can be used by the players.
>Maybe you only start out with NPCs in these positions... eventually players
>take over. When they rule the land they can change government types. I think
>you'll need stewards in this case. NPC that will act on behalf of the player
>while they are away from the world. What do the rest of you think?
>
We've always balked against implementing this. I _personally_ would like to
see a semi-feudal system of the type you mentioned implemented...but others
disagree and the agreement amongst the admins is that these are player
issues...they can begin setting up some type of structure via roleplaying if
they wish to. Perhaps, after some initial work has been done by our players
in developing the type of government/politics they'd like to see on the mud,
we'll be more willing in supporting that type with coded enhancements to the
system. Currently, our players live within a state of semi-anarchy and seem
to enjoy it. ;) Perhaps time will bring some people along who attempt to
develop some further system of government. ;)
-peter
John Adelsberger
darren...@hotmail.com wrote:
: What I hope todo is make law enforcement an NPC issue. The council could issue
: an arrest warrant to the local guard captain. The guards would then be
: reponsible for the arrest. It leads to a whole bunch of cool possibilities...
Unless you plan to make dying a lot easier, it leads to zero law enforcement
or complete lack of believability. How do you plan to explain a few city
guards capturing the most powerful magician in all the land when this man
can obliterate them(and probably the town too) on a whim?
--
John J. Adelsberger III
j...@umr.edu
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
Jay at ARNet
The question about limiting movement is a big one, and I think
easily fixed. Just that few do it, though a few HAVE.
What I mean is simple enough: add commands to allow players to
attempt to block or guard exits from locations, or perhaps
entrances INTO locations (though I'd guess this would be a bit
harder). Also add commands for tracking (which has been done
all over, so that's no big deal). And add restraint-related
commands like knockover, grapple, etc.
You sure can run away in most muds. Hard to catch the quick!
Running rabbits (players just moving as fast as possible) can
be caught, however, or at least the catch can be made _possible_,
with those added functions.
And if they can stay free, hey! great! It happens often enough
in RL with fugitives.
> >How do other muds deal with the issue of letting the political and
> social
> >environment evolve based on player choice verses implementing some
> type of
> >official system (feudal, democratic, whatever)???
>
> On Elephant Mud, we allow council to place a bounty on the head of
> people who break the council rules. Their own internal rules say that
> at least 4 councillors need to vote for such a move, but there is no
> code to enforce this. With a bounty on their head, a player can be
> attacked by anyone, anywhere. In general it works pretty well, although
> a key factor is that by unanimous vote, a councillor can be voted down
> by the rest of council, which avoids one bad apple running riot.
>
> I think the only problem you have is that without some kind of system to
> limit movement (ie some form of commands / second, movement
> points etc), is that it's very *very* hard to catch someone who is
> expecting an attack, unless you can get them in one hit, or in some way
> stop them from running. Once someone starts moving, especially if they
> have some kind of client-side fastwalking, catching up, without also
> relying on a client, is almost impossible. It is this difficulty, ie
> catching
> rather than *killing*, criminals that in my experience leads to the
> calls
> for some form of 'insta-arrest'.
>
> Larnen
--
>------------------------ for my proper email address, remove the ---+
Jay Sax // Cimri 'no' and 'spam' from my reply-to address.
Managing Partner, Alternate Reality Net ----------------------------+
darren...@hotmail.com
> Unless you plan to make dying a lot easier, it leads to zero law enforcement
> or complete lack of believability. How do you plan to explain a few city
> guards capturing the most powerful magician in all the land when this man
> can obliterate them(and probably the town too) on a whim?
This really depends upon the systems in place on your mud. On mine mages will
require free hands to cast spells. My NPCs will also have the ability "as will
players" to sneak up on players. They could then subdue the player and put him
in shackles. Which is fairly realistic. Yes players should be able to kill
guards... but then the guards should be able to use different approaches to
arresting players. If one is creative NPC could enforce the law in a semi-
realistic manner. This would be a good starting point to discuss NPC AI.
Having NPCs that adapt to situtions based on past experience. If guard one
walks up to the mage and get wasted then maybe guard 2 should try a different
approach. And how would the King feel if you killed off all the guards in his
town? What actions would he take? Also just because a player is a powerful
mage should that make him untouchable? What fun would that be?
Richard Woolcock
darren...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > Unless you plan to make dying a lot easier, it leads to zero law enforcement
> > or complete lack of believability. How do you plan to explain a few city
> > guards capturing the most powerful magician in all the land when this man
> > can obliterate them(and probably the town too) on a whim?
>
> This really depends upon the systems in place on your mud. On mine mages will
> require free hands to cast spells. My NPCs will also have the ability "as will
> players" to sneak up on players. They could then subdue the player and put him
> in shackles. Which is fairly realistic. Yes players should be able to kill
In order to do this, your mobs will have to have specific goals. I assume these
will be static? Eg: The guards hunt down killers, the assassins hunt down their
targets, the bodyguard attacks anyone coming near his/her charge, the beastly
fido attacks anyone smaller than him in his territory, etc...
> guards... but then the guards should be able to use different approaches to
> arresting players. If one is creative NPC could enforce the law in a semi-
> realistic manner. This would be a good starting point to discuss NPC AI.
> Having NPCs that adapt to situtions based on past experience. If guard one
This is more complex, as it requires storing information.
> walks up to the mage and get wasted then maybe guard 2 should try a different
> approach.
But only if they personally witnessed the attack. Would the guards then
recognise the mage as being a mage, and know how to deal with future mages?
Would they pass this information on to their friends? Would they decided it
was too great a risk, and go back for reinforcements?
> And how would the King feel if you killed off all the guards in his
> town? What actions would he take?
Without any guards? Not much he *could* do...perhaps he would grovel in
front of you and plead for his life...
> Also just because a player is a powerful mage should that make him
> untouchable? What fun would that be?
Using your example above...maybe the King could hire other powerful players
to take care of the mage? Think of it as a sort of plot-related quest...
KaVir.
Amit Garg
Hello darren .
I am no mud admin , but your idea is thought provoking and i came up
with a few tit bits that might help . A possible implementation :
*Beyond a certain level , players can have followers. They have the
right to refuse any supplicant for any reason .
*Followers are of 2 types -- political and religious .
*Anyone may have a poilitcal allegiance and a religious one (possibly
different) at the same time
*'follow' is transitive ... [ as suggested by Alan ] though coherent ...
we cant have evil priests following a good cleric king .
*Followers gain from their 'lord' . This i am not sure how to implement
. But it necessary , for it is the only way to get followers to obey
their Lord 's orders (if they dont , he 'unfollow's them and they lose
out ) . Perhaps this 'gain' could be in terms of exp (*nah*) ? Money ?
Security (from what) ?
*'Follow'ing need not be voluntary ... it might be done under threat .
That helps breed dictators . And heros :o)
*War : why have it ? To gain something . Not followers ... because
players can change allegiance at will . This is a sort of 'patch' , but
the 'castles and kingdoms' idea comes in handy . Extremely powerful
players (with a certain number of followers?) may be deemed 'king's and
given charge of a kingdom (an area) with a castle . Within the kingdom ,
guards and civil servants protect citizens (of the king) and provide
services . Citizens have numerous priorities and advantages . At the
King's discretion , outsiders may be outlawed etc. Autmatic Equipment
saving is one great reason to be a citizen :p . So , when defeated in
war , the victor king inherits the kingdom ... the citizens are homeless
. They must make their choice ... beg plead whatever . Basically the
top-level 'barons' (direct followers of the king) stop following him .
*Ok , War . But how does it happen ? War is necessarily between two
kings . A rogue wizard that appears out of nowhere and slays the king is
no excuse for him to be overthrown .
Secondary Ideas:
*One can follow individuals or groups of individuals (so we have a sort
of combined leadership coming in ... perhaps even some sort of a
democracy)
Well thats a start anyway . The war idea can be developed i think .
there is room for democracy and dictators . Civil war can resuilt when a
powerful follower declares war against his former king . The king and
the 'church' might conflict . Properly drawn out ... the war might
support alliances and betrayel etc.
Hope this helps .
Amit
Amit Garg
Marian Griffith
> In article <6iq6mq$n7b$1...@gte1.gte.net>, NOja...@alternaterealitynet.com wrote:
> >> Players can [swear] [allegiance] to the crown and follow the rules of
> >> [feudal] societies, [e.g.] [r]emit taxes to the crown, pledge
> >> [military] aid, enter into trade agreements etc.
> >> Eventually players will be able to have [others as] [their] [vassals]
> >> thereby increasing [their] rank within the kingdom. They
> >> could even become king/queen some day. War will be ... an option
> >> between castles, against the crown or against other kingdoms.
> >> This has become a massive undertaking for me and I'd like to open
> >> a discussion here as to what is possible and relevant in such a
> >> system.
> I'd be interested in seeing how other people handle some of the
> political/social elements on muds, as well.
I think the best place to start with is to create a reason for politics.
On the average mud there is no reason to form groups or to work hard for
political power that is not granting you anything. Maybe on those games
that allow pk there is the aspect of mutual protection but that is more
of a clan thing and hardly inspires politics.
To create politics you need to have two things, I think. One is a scarce
resource that -no- player on the game can do without for long. Two is a
situation that direct combat is not a good solution eg. because it would
cost a lot of that same resource. This way you have a conflict (or many
conflicts), and players need to talk to solve that conflict rather than
use violence.
> On Nightmare we've taken the
> stance that nearly all social/political systems (class councils, mud
> councils, etc.) should be player designed with little to no hard coded
> support (ok, we added methods for voting, and so forth). We admins
> forcing our ideas of the political/social landscape on the players,
> while possibly adding continuitiy of vision, smacks of artificiality.
> We've run up against the problem of elected players complaining they do
> not have the power to enforce council decisions (the council can make
> and enforce player laws. There is generally a great deal of whining that
> they don't have a command that would allow them to arrest violators and
> so on and so forth. Their complaints are in a sense justified because
> Nightmare implements a limited PK policy so if the violators simply stay
> out of the PK areas they are pretty safe from whomever feels like
> enforcing the laws.
Killing a character is rarely going to solve anything. The offender is
simply going to return, grab some new weapons and equipment, and con-
tinue with what he was doing. There is no real consequence to actions
in the mud as players can more easily switch to another character, and
if anything, become more determined at their misdoings. (this is often
used by those players as a justification to their actions. e.g. saying
'it is only a game so nobody is harmed by what I do').
So while the council on nightmare mud is right that they do not have a
way to enforce their decisions, giving them the means will not make a
real difference either. What needs to be done is change the underlying
structure of the game, so that actions inside the mud can have a real
effect on characters, and on their player's abilities to abuse it.
That said, a list of wanted criminals in a city, can work wonders. Es-
pecially if it causes all guards to mass and attack, all non-players
to flee in terror, and all shopkeepers lock their doors against these
criminals. Being a feared murderer is only so much fun if everybody is
running away from you, and you keep having to defend yourself against
these hordes of pesky town guards, unable to get rid of your loot be-
cause no shopkeeper wants to trade with you. Being a real outcast on a
game might be fun initially, but the entertainment value quickly palls
when faced with the reality of being very alone in the game.
> How do other muds deal with the issue of letting the political and social
> environment evolve based on player choice verses implementing some type of
> official system (feudal, democratic, whatever)???
Beats me, though my bet would be that the majority of muds either does
not bother, or takes the stance that as long as players can kill each
other unlimited they are policing themselves.
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
Marian Griffith
In article <6iq6mq$n7b$1...@gte1.gte.net>, Jay at ARNet
<URL:mailto:nos...@alternaterealitynet.com> wrote:
> Batzin/Darren:
> I love this topic. I'll respond briefly below.
> darren...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > [Is] what I'm doing unique[?]
> > I want [players] to have the ability to be granted Castles and land.
> > They will be tasked with running the castle on three basic levels.
> > ... economic, military and political.
| Players can [swear] [allegiance] to the crown and follow the rules of
| [feudal] societies, [e.g.] [r]emit taxes to the crown, pledge
| [military] aid, enter into trade agreements etc.
| Eventually players will be able to have [others as] [their] [vassals]
| thereby increasing [their] rank within the kingdom. They
| could even become king/queen some day. War will be ... an option
| between castles, against the crown or against other kingdoms.
| This has become a massive undertaking for me and I'd like to open
| a discussion here as to what is possible and relevant in such a
| system. I'd also like to know if others
> > If anyone is interested in working on this with me please email me
> > (darren...@hotmail.com ). It's my ... opinion that muds have been
> > overlooking politics as an essential part of imaginary environments.
> > This could stem from my lack of experience with all the muds out
> > there and if so I'd like to hear about it!
> Politics and social structures have been substantially, but not
> entirely, overlooked. I am still in the midst of writing up my
> own socio-political system for general publication here, but I
> think you are definitely on the right track. You'll find numerous
> allies posting/lurking here, including JC Lawrence, Dr. Cat,
> Holly Sommer, Raph Koster, Nathan Yospe, and Marian Griffith,
> to name but a very few.
This subject has indeed been discussed on this group several times
before. You can find a summary of kinds in various places, including
the website I am maintaining (http://www.iaehv.nl/users/gryphon) in
the 'dungeon' section. I do not know of any mud that has made this a
central part of the game (i.e. overshadowing the combat aspect). But
there have been some plans for muds in development.
You may also want to have a look at the variety of simulation and/or
resource management games. I think (have not played it) that a game
called simcity is something you should look at and I have heard of a
game called tradewars that may be something along the same lines. It
may be that somebody else on this group knows more about that game,
or has played it and can tell for certain. Other than that I think
that you would be the first to start a game like that, and so you'll
be more or less in the dark about what works and what should be done
just as we all are.
> Ultima On-Line has made a few pretty good efforts along those
> lines already, to give a really flameworthy example.
> But I _really_ think this is the way to go. I think the social
> and political systems need designing and creating to answer one
> of the bigger questions in mudding, so often asked -- "what is
> there to do besides killing and solving puzzles?"
Most of the time that should read killing or solving puzzles ;)
> I'm working on posting my "things I think should be in all muds,
> with no pretense to substantial originality" soon, so I can rid
> myself of the thought/design/theory part of things and get down
> to coding it. Honestly, it'll be "Real Soon Now (sm)."
Marian
darren...@hotmail.com
> > Politics and social structures have been substantially, but not
> > entirely, overlooked. I am still in the midst of writing up my
> > own socio-political system for general publication here, but I
> > think you are definitely on the right track. You'll find numerous
> > allies posting/lurking here, including JC Lawrence, Dr. Cat,
> > Holly Sommer, Raph Koster, Nathan Yospe, and Marian Griffith,
> > to name but a very few.
I want to state here that my mud should be a non-linear story for each player.
I'm of the opinion that the storyline "Historical and Present" is what
engrosses the player and that is should be told from different perspectives
based on race, class, religion or allegence. As such, Politics will form the
backbone of the entire struggle. I admire Lord of the Rings because it was
told on the two levels I want my mud to work on. The overall political
struggle and that of each of the characters. The political stuggle and it's
history form the entire reason the characters quested in the first place. I
think Politics could be used as a new playground for higher level characters
but more importantly it would create a dynamic modern history fot the mud that
the players are part of. The rebellion of last year might impact this actions
of a player this year... The history and political land scape would be in flux
creating a new world every year with new goals to achieve.
The real challenges with this will be recording the history and building it
into the storyline for new players and finding a system balanced enough that
no one player will have an easy time dominating it. Yet the domination could
be possible.
In my past exp as an Admin I totally ignored this aspect. I created the world
then tried to fit the history and politics to it. Hence I was caught up in my
own creation. To change the entire systems after too much work had been done.
So I've chosen to start from scratch. To build the political system first with
a pre-history that puts it into context.
Sorry about the Rant!
Thanks for the web addy I will check it out. Like i said I think we should try
build on past exp's of others. Find out what worked and what failed and why
and move on from there. And again if anyone wants to help feel free to contact
me!
-Darren Doyle
Batzing