From news.clinet.fi!news.cs.hut.fi!news.funet.fi!news.eunet.fi!EU.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nac!nntp1.nac.net!crystal.palace.net!chaos Sun Aug 10 14:01:20 1997 From: chaos@crystal.palace.net (Matthew R. Sheahan) Subject: Lost Souls government system proposal Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin,rec.games.mud.lp Organization: Crystal Palace Networking X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.231.120.1 Message-ID: <33ec2f39.0@nntp1.nac.net> Date: 9 Aug 97 08:50:01 GMT Lines: 319 Path: news.clinet.fi!news.cs.hut.fi!news.funet.fi!news.eunet.fi!EU.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nac!nntp1.nac.net!crystal.palace.net!chaos Xref: news.clinet.fi rec.games.mud.admin:27976 rec.games.mud.lp:25363 greetings. enclosed is the current draft of a proposal currently being worked on at Lost Souls LPmud (lostsouls.org 3000) involving setting up player government functions. i'm posting it in hopes of garnering added commentary from the MUD community at large. obviously, the injunctions to analyze and comment on the material are intended for the players and wizards of the MUD itself rather than you folks as such. hopefully there won't be too many references to local phenomena for outsiders to get the gist of the document; if you'd like anything cleared up please let me know. one item in that area: an "incarnos", plural "incarnoi", is the in-theme name for a player character on LS. chiaroscuro [ Proposal: Lost Souls Player Government System ] Version: Draft 2 The following is an outline of a system being proposed which would empower players to act as the government of the MUD game world. Under this system, wizards would abdicate many of their "law enforcement" duties to players, and player governments would be granted several abilities within the game world. This would constitute a radical social change to the MUD. A great deal of disinformation has been propagated about this proposal. It is therefore very important that you read this document carefully and consider its implications before making judgements about it, so that the choice of the MUD in its entirety to accept or reject this proposal can be made as a valid, educated decision, not a response to false and simplistic emotional appeals. This is the second draft of this document, which will pass through one or more rounds of review and modification before a final draft is to be presented and put to a MUD-wide vote. [ I: Rules Changes ] These are changes which would be made to the "rules" of the entire MUD, these being rules which wizards are expected to enforce. 1. MUD-wide policy regarding "player-killing", or "PK", would be removed. Wizards would no longer have responsibilities in this area. Instead, it would be a matter to be addressed by player government bodies. 2. The policy of "guild secrecy" would be removed, permitting guilds to perform membership drives and so forth. Barriers to guild entry consisting of secrecy would be replaced with initiation ordeals designed to be difficult for one player to do for another. Individual guilds would be permitted to maintain a policy of secrecy if desired, but this should not be depended on as a barrier to entry. [ II: Technical Changes ] These are changes which would be made to the technical infrastructure of the MUD. 1. Mechanisms would be implemented which permit the citizens of each of the MUD's "homelands" (those areas with adventurer's guilds) to elect a governing council for the homeland. Eligibility to vote would always be restricted to players of level 6 and higher with an age of at least one real day as of the opening of the vote, to make ballot-box stuffing more difficult. Any citizen could nominate themselves for a council position. Deleting a character would void any votes made by that character in currently open ballots. Additional requirements to vote could be determined by individual homelands according to their character; level requirements, stat requirements, wealth requirements, and poll taxes are some options. The size of the council will also vary according to homeland; some homelands may have a government council of one, who would be referred to as a lord. Council members would be elected for a period variable by homeland, usually on the order of one real month; the previous holder of the office would automatically be entered on the new ballot. 2. The council of each homeland would be empowered to determine a number of matters by vote. Most votes would be decided by a simple majority, though special topics and some homelands could have other requirements. The items which may be decided by the council include: a. Defining the homeland's laws. These would be published in a book viewable at the homeland's municipal center. It is expected that most homelands would have an ordinance against incarnoi killing incarnoi who are citizens in good standing of the homeland. There is no limitation upon what ordinances a homeland may vote into law. b. Designating the homeland's law enforcement officials. Council members may or may not be eligible for this post, depending upon how averse the homeland is to concentrating large amounts of power in the hands of a single individual. c. Removing law enforcement officials from office. d. Setting the homeland's tax rate. This tax would be collected as a sales tax by merchants within the homeland, on moneys paid both to and from the merchants. e. Determining the homeland's immigration policy; i.e., what an incarnos must do to change his homeland to this one. Some options include: i. open immigration (no requirements) ii. approval by a vote of the council iii. approval by a council member iv. approval by a law enforcement official v. approval by a citizen vi. a monetary payment vii. immigration by marriage viii. alignment restrictions ix. racial restrictions x. combinations of the above f. The disposition of the homeland's monies. The homeland's sources of income would include taxes, surcharges on proxy bounties (see section II:3) and other fees for government services, and donations. These funds could be disposed of as follows: i. wages to council members ii. wages to law enforcement officials iii. wages or grants to citizens iv. wages or grants to anyone v. posting of civic bounties vi. maintenance and expansion of government facilities vii. maintenance and expansion of homeland military Some of these items may be automatically extracted from homeland funds; in particular, maintenance amounts. Lack of sufficient monies to pay maintenance costs may penalize the related facilities. 3. The law enforcement officials designated by a homeland would be granted various powers, primarily ones related their homeland in some way. These would vary from homeland to homeland, but are likely to include: a. The ability to command the homeland's military forces. b. The ability to post bounties upon incarnoi. This would require the official to have the amount of the bounty on hand, which would be taken as security on the bounty. Bounties for which the official pays himself, possibly from funds voted to him by the council, are civic bounties. Officials could also post bounties on behalf of others; this is called a proxy bounty, and the official is likely to charge some amount above and beyond the amount of the bounty, normally to be given to the homeland's coffers. These bounties would appear at a public notice area within the homeland where they are posted. They would be paid out automatically to persons having killed the incarnos designated upon that person's arrival at the homeland's municipal center. c. The ability to remove his homeland's bounties. The amount of the bounty would be paid into the homeland's coffers. d. The ability to set trade embargoes upon incarnoi. This forbids the homeland's merchants from trading with the incarnos designated. Some merchants, such as black marketeers, may not be affected. e. The ability to designate an incarnos a public enemy. This causes all the homeland's military forces to attack the incarnos on sight. f. The ability to manipulate the homeland's gates or other access restriction mechanisms, if applicable. g. The ability to revoke citizenship in his homeland from incarnoi. This would be limited to one usage in a given time period (real day, for example), to prevent some odd situation where a law official expels all the homeland's citizens in order to maintain exclusive control over the homeland's resources. h. The ability to view a log of player kills involving citizens of their homeland. i. Other abilities unique to individual homelands. For instance, officials of Camelot may be granted blessings protecting against sorcery and given knightly armour, weapons, and mount, while officials of Yathryn might receive magickal enhancements increasing speed and dexterity and be given a war spider to ride. These added benefits would often be coded so as to make them more useful within the homeland than outside it. 4. A mechanism similar to the election of homeland councils would be instituted for guilds, allowing guild members to elect a guild council. The guild council would have fewer powers than homeland councils, having no physical territory to govern, and would mainly be concerned with appointing a guildmaster and advising him, and removing him from office if necessary. 5. The guildmaster of a guild would be given powers as follows: a. The guildmaster would be concerned with enforcing any applicable standards of conduct related to the guild. To this end, he may have various powers of discipline over guild members, which could include any of the following, depending on the guild: i. Suspending guild powers for a specified period of time. ii. Expelling guild members. (Extreme care should be taken that this does not come to function as a "free guildstrip" ability.) iii. Imposing fines upon guild members, which the guild member would have to pay in addition to their guild dues in order to advance. iv. Suspending access to guild services for a specified period of time. v. Killing guild members by means of a simple command. This is most appropriate for devotional guilds and guilds whose trappings provide extensive access to their members' physical bodies, such as the Paladins of Nyarlathotep (which is not to say that the Paladins would necessarily be subject to this, simply that it could be justified in terms of thematic logic for them). b. The guildmaster would control the disposition of the guild coffers. These would contain money collected in guild dues, any money donated by members or others, and any fees collected for guild services. This money would be expended in two fashions: i. Automatic collection for maintenance of guild facilities. ii. Withdrawal by the guildmaster. Funds withdrawn by the guildmaster could be used for any purpose he sees fit, including expansion of guild facilities if such is possible. Guilds allied with homelands may contribute guild monies to them to aid in their maintenance; for guilds strongly tied to a particular homeland by their nature, such as the Justicars of Tyr, this may happen automatically. 6. Donation items would be altered to reduce the effectiveness of extremely powerful ones in combat between incarnoi. The optimum objective here is to make donation items no more effective in inter-incarnos combat than a mid-grade MUD artifact. [ III: Commentary ] Sections I and II have been concerned with stating the basic changes which would be made to the MUD to implement this system, with a minimum of commentary on implications of these changes. This section contains thoughts as to these implications, both positive and negative, and reasons why the proponents of this concept believe the former outweighs the latter. 1. Possible negative factors include: a. The potential for playerkilling to "run rampant". Since this system would include the "legalization" of playerkilling in terms of the "rules of the MUD", the fear has been expressed that playerkilling will become the norm rather than the exception. Unlike superficially similar systems on other MUDs, this system has been designed to maximize the ability of players to make "antisocial" PK, the kind that makes the game un-fun for people, an unattractive option. The ability to impose embargoes, in particular, is meant to fill this need. Since there is nothing to prevent allied cities from imposing sanctions against one another's criminals, a legitimately abusive player could rapidly find himself unwelcome in most settlements on the MUD. Expanding cities which are not currently homelands to support these functions would make this yet more effective. b. The potential for governmental power to be abused, including a situation feared where "high-level players run the MUD" against the consent of the rest of the player base. The voting mechanisms are intended to prevent just this -- or, more precisely, to give players the ability to prevent it. It would be the responsibility of players to keep their elected officials in check, but they would have the power to do just that. c. The potential for players who are very powerful in combat to ignore the law with impunity and remain invulnerable to any sort of punishment. This is related to both items above, and is intended to be addressed by the same means as noted in item III:1:a, and in addition by the limiting of donation items in item II:6. d. The potential for "lone wolf" players who do not desire to participate in a community to be severely penalized. It's not intended that it should be impossible to refuse interaction with a community, and it's hoped that nothing in this document would suggest that. That said, though, there would obviously be benefits to belonging to a strong community, and "lone wolf" characters would lack access to these benefits. This seems reasonable and proper. e. The potential for MUD-wide "wars" to break out, causing large amounts of wanton destruction and reducing everyone's enjoyment. It's hoped that the mechanisms provided for punishing antisocial behavior would prevent a "state of war" from developing across the entire MUD. It would be technically possible, however; players would have to take the responsibility for preventing matters from degenerating to that extent. Furthermore, it's been mentioned that the main reason other MUDs have reached this stage is because of the ability of players to attain a state of being "untouchable", and able to behave like vandals without fear of significant retribution. This system should prevent that. It would also be possible for "wars" to develop between enemy homelands. If done properly and within the will of the people of the homelands, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. 2. Possible positive factors include: a. The vast expansion of the game's horizons. Many players who have been through the length and breadth of the MUD become bored with the "same old routine" of "slay the monster, collect the experience". This system would create whole new sets of objectives for people to pursue -- helping build their community, participating in civil government, upholding the law, competing with rival communities, attaining positions of recognition which hinge on more than killing something -- providing many new avenues for the jaded monster-slayer to explore. b. The creation of legitimate MUD communities. Right now, Lost Souls is essentially a collection of solo adventurers; even grouping is relatively rare. This system would heavily encourage people to come together and find ways of working with each other to make their community work. c. Removing wizards from the position of "running the world" and placing players in that role. Wizards should be creating the world, not running it. Under this system, players would finally be empowered to make a real difference in the quality of the world by their actions. d. The encouragement of role-playing. Many people see this system as a way to help make role-playing a more than occasional sight on Lost Souls. As always, role-playing is up to the players, but the system would seem to provide more contexts which would encourage it. One item in this line is that having a thief guild would be viable under this system, while under our current approach it is almost completely impossible. e. Encouraging the education of newbies. It's hoped that everyone would recognize the value of belonging to a strong community. It's further hoped that people would recognize that a good way to strengthen one's community is to educate newbies so that they function as good citizens. A view of newbies as potential valuable resources would vastly improve the initial experience they have with Lost Souls, which is often not completely wonderful in our current situation. Please give this proposal thought and share your thoughts with others. Talk on channels, post on the adventurer's guild board, send mail to wizards (Chaos in particular). This system can only be as good as all of us make it. Thanks!