Re: [MUD-Dev] Nation of shopkeepers

[Matt Chatterley <root#mpc,dyn.ml.org>]

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Jeff Kesselman wrote:

> >It depends on the game crowd you aim at, I suppose. I recently settled
> >(rather heavy handedly, admittedly) a debate among some of my wizards,
> >over whether or not the following situation should be permitted:
> >
> >A healer type character to sit in a central location and heal someone all
> >day for their 'exp' (meaning: their method to progress, whatever it be).
> >
> >Personally I see no debate here - of course it should, but with sensible
> >restrictions. You can't get good at anything but healing (and perhaps
> >dealing with people) by doing this!
> 
> Or if not, there should be reasons built into the strucvture of your world
> why its not a good idea.

Right. It's basically a personal opinion - it should be doable, if its
conceivable that someone will want to do it, and sensible to implement it.
If its boring to do - presumably less people will do it, but that doesn't
really matter, unless its causing a problem in game balance, which in this
case, its certainly not.
 
> I basicly agree.  As long as someone is not directly and seriously
> impacting the intended purpsoe of the environment they should be free to be
> as creatviue as they want in how they react to and deal with it.

Right. Thats the basic theory in motion - it's really, IMHO, the only way
to go about creating a world or environment, rather than a simplified (or
rather one-sided) game. Adventuring is there for those who wish to
undertake it - the rest of the world is there for the others.
 
> If they find a hole in your logic and exploit it then plug the hole.

Also quite right.

> 
> >This also ties into activities such as fishing, and crafts. Of course, it
> >should be possible, but it could get quite boring if the player does it
> >literally. Fishing is actualy an exception if you get onto deep sea
> >fishing - pirates and such.
> >
> 
> Well these are the kidsn of things Im encouragign players  in oru design to
> do. They cant be iron miners, or even weaponsmiths (yet, it may change when
> we add AD&D proficiencies) btu they CAN make money escorting caravans or
> even organizing their own.  These caravans of course though get attacked,
> which is why peoepl liek them are needed...

Yeah. Integrating economical cycles into the game introduces many, many
possible NPC functions that PCs can enjoy taking over.

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"He can't stop us, we're on a mission from Glod!" - Soul Music (Pratchett)