In a play I recently participated in titled, "Tainted Blood", the sight on religious artifacts was that if it had high praise in a benevolent deity, then it had power to weaken/harm a vampire. One of the ways the main character defeats his lover vampire is by taking a sacred Egyption stone and pouring milk over it, then taking a mouth full of it and spitting it out into her mouth, the artifact sanctified the milk making it a holy symbol. A system like this would be pretty interesting.
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The only gun you can start with is a six shot revolver... and if you're not going to do anything but give people gun-grief, then yes, you could pump up your shooting skill pretty high... but I think there's a limit to how much grief you could cause that way... someone with all their points and resources in grief-causing doesn't have any points or resources in not-getting-torn-limb-from-limb, and mostly, one type of bullets is only good against one type of character (although you can hedge your bets and get special ammo, since it'll still kill humans, but that gives you less bullets per box)... so it's kinda like Russian roulette in reverse.
Basically, if you can't kill someone the slow way, then there is no possibility of instant death, so its effect on purely random combat is going to be pretty negligible. If you have the reason and means to kill somebody, then it just makes things more interesting and riskier. | |
The problem is that there is still that small chance, and randomly going around shooting people is so easy and entertaining.
Probably, you'll just want to review how everybody died (keeping a log and such), and if it seems that it was simply a result of a random griefer, a dity would revive the person. | |
Actually, the priest in Salem's lot died because he put his belief in the holy symbol... it was faith in God, not faith in the cross, that kept the vampire at bay, and when the man refused to put the cross aside, he lost his power over the vampire. The book was very explicit on this point... but I do take your meaning.
Actually, I like the reverse idea better... it's the faith (or unfaith, following damnation) of the vampire that matters... like a Jewish vampire is unafraid of the cross but can be undone by a star of David or the seal of solomon. See The Fearless Vampire Hunters for an example of this. In any event, I don't think this idea translates well to a MUD. I have a Faith skill, but I keep wavering on whether or not to cut it, especially since it's explicitly Christian-oriented and I have a whole heathen idolatery Theology skill. | |
It's not really that easy, nor do I think they'd find it that entertaining. Each time you make a special attack, like shooting or heart-staking, it roots you in spot as you "re-ready" the weapon, which means you can't really shoot and run... which means your murderous spree is likely to last all of until you happen to shoot someone without killing them... and if you're optimized for shooting, you're not really optimized for anything else, which means you're likely to die.
Now, griefers don't generally care about dying... they're not trying to advance in the game, just wreck things for others... so I suppose this is as good a time as any to mention what happens when you die... your character's spirit goes into "limbo" for an hour of real time (meaning unlike most game effects, you can log off and the clock keeps ticking), before you can remake... if you log on during that time, you're basically logging into a chat line with anyone else who's dead, appropriately psychic, or sleeping. After that, you have the option of re-making, but that negates any possibility of resurrection, of which there are multiple forms... none easy, few permanent, and most with disadvantages. For instance, there's a type of potion that can be administered to a corpse that revives it for the potion's duration... doses taken while "animated" prolong it... there's a necromantic spell that reunites a spirit with its body, but skills and mental attributes are diminished, and it's not the sort of spell you can cast lightly. I don't plan on reviving anyone who gets killed by a random griefer, any more than I'd revive someone killed by a bolt of lightning if I had random bolts of lightning (someone finds a massive killing exploit, that's another thing), but a pattern of someone logging on, dying, making a new character first opportunity, dying, making a new character first opportunity, and so on won't go unnoticed. As a "high roleplaying" game, I do plan on requiring registration (not subscription, just registration), so it's not like someone can just switch keys, and the very fact that people will have to register before playing will deter griefers a bit. I mean, you have to really want to give grief if you have to sign up in advance. New players can still sign in, make a character, and read help files while waiting for registration to come through... I figure that will help discourage the "Oh, I just pushed things until I got through. Help files? I never read them." type mentality. | |
Hedgemistress wrote:
But I digress. again.... -.-' if anyone wants a tight telemarketing code, I can put it into a library Telemarketer: "Hi, is Xooxer there?" Xooxer: "Uh, leme go check." *Xooxer checks his shoelaces* Xooxer: "Nope, sorry. You just missed him." Telemarketer: "That's fine. Who am I speaking with?" Xooxer: "Uh, leme check." *Xooxer checks his watch, the Telemarketer does too* Xooxer: "We're not sure." Telemarketer: "We? Is there someone else the I can speak with?" Xooxer: "Sure." *Xooxer hands the phone to his roomate's 3 year old and shrugs* Roomate's kid: "Some? Yeah. Ok, bye!" *click* ~X | |
Hedgemistress wrote:
In any event, I don't think this idea translates well to a MUD. I have a Faith skill, but I keep wavering on whether or not to cut it, especially since it's explicitly Christian-oriented and I have a whole heathen idolatery Theology skill. Keep both; add in Buhdism; save a cow. ~X | |
That seemed like a nice homage, but kind of pointlessly silly and takes some punch away from prophesy and precognition... "The crisis will happen on... Tuesday!" "What, again?" (Someone or other): Buffy! Dawns in danger! (Buffy): Oh? Must be tuesday. | |
Xooxer wrote:
Hedgemistress wrote: That's Hinduism. China has lots of cattle. =P | |
It sounds to me like there is quite a bit to do, especially for those who want to really delve deeply into the roleplaying realm.
One question that comes to my mind is how much effect could players have on the environment? It sounds like they can customize themselves, and the monstrous denizens of the town, but will players have any real effect on the world around them? I mean, for my checklist to be complete, I'd need to become mayor before I become invincible and ascend, and all that jaz... It would be interesting to see a player-monster use charisma or somesuch nonsense and rally some monsters to themselves. This kind of thing could potentially add some spice to conflicts, although it would take a powerful player to do the rallying. It sounds to me like this world has alot of stuff in it, but the way it all works really makes it sound like a roleplayer's haven - if what you want to roleplay is something nasty in a small town, or a person hunting something nasty in a small town - and who doesn't want to be either of those? All in all it sounds to me like it has enough to it, although more would definately not make it too much! | |
Gathin wrote:
It would be interesting to see a player-monster use charisma or somesuch nonsense and rally some monsters to themselves. I don't think this sort of thing would be in the hands of a variable. Simply start a clumsy Pyrimid killing sceme/cult, grow in numbers, then take over the town. As for the Mayor thing, it would probably be rather easy to rise to power if you handled it like a real world thing. Although I'm guessing a vigilante group of Demon hunters would take the liberty of "screening the candidates with extreme prejudice" (Aka, use magic to see if they are Human, if not get steak happy at the first possible chance). | |
Actually, that raises another question.
Will Human controlled "big bads" be in? The NPCs wont be able to do a lot of stuff a GM (GM is actually the correct term for once =P ) could easily play out. Also will there be any chance of veteran players getting given the roles of "big bads"? | |
Why would anyone but an average (well, maybe stronger then average) player need to be a big bad? Most of what I was saying was to make such a position amusing and such, but even if there is but little to no player control over the environment and npcs, why wouldn't there be a reason for a fairly powerful player to enforce their will over a handful of others, and declare themselves a big bad?
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I don't think this sort of thing would be in the hands of a variable. Simply start a clumsy Pyrimid killing sceme/cult, grow in numbers, then take over the town. Saying charisma is just an easy way for me to explain an idea - the idea is that player would be able to have computer controlled minions As for the Mayor thing You were talking about big bads and you don't recognize one? | |
Oh that would definantly be possible, and undoubtably occur. I just meant premade big bads, with premade goals. Such as the Mayor. He wouldn't be able to rise to that as a normal player who started with everyone else. He is simply too unique.
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It seems very sensible to me. Why would say God help your scrawny ass if you didn't believe in him? lol.
I was just wondering. This will he something Ill have to definatly check out, I love RPing!