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Crippling (Code Suggestion)
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Cormac
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 9:15 am      Reply with quote

Leaving this here instead of, "IC Conflict and You." So as not to derail a great thread.

-

Killing is often a prime resort because nothing else really effects a character. You can beat them down, but they'll be back in a day and just as dangerous. Stripping their equipment is often a more powerful statement, but still limited.

As one commentator posted somewhat more viscerally, If you don't kill them, they'll be back tomorrow, and you might not be so lucky.

Why not add an intermediary - a cripple command.

A complete version could be done up like the infection code, with hampers on appropriate skills until the wound is fixed.

But simpler is an immediate and brutal drop in the persons skills. Cripple their hand to take 20 points off their weapon and artisan skills. A leg to drop their defense and stealth. Stretch rationality, and knock them on the head for craft loss. Etc.

It weakens the character so that they are less of a threat in the future, gives a lasting and painful hit to their pfile. But is, given enough rl time to re-raise skills, entirely recoverable.

- Mac


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padweld999
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 9:25 am      Reply with quote

it's an interesting suggestion, and I like it in theory, but that sounds like a slippery slope leading to PCs crippling others just to eliminate the competition whenever they feel like without the other's consent, making them weaker for the rest of their IC lives.

Any suggestions to maybe limit the application?


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wirsindallein
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(ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧

Post Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 10:07 am      Reply with quote

I can see a lot of people just storing once this happens to them. It's gonna be the same as death, for some.

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padweld999
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 10:31 am      Reply with quote

I get that. I mean, if you are a crafting PC, and that is your -thing-, and now suddenly you can't really do that effectively ever again, are you going to grind away at another skillset for weeks or months, or are you just going to roll a different PC and move on?

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wirsindallein
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(ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧

Post Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 11:15 am      Reply with quote

Or your peak Con character is suddenly made incapable of properly defending themselves in combat.
Or...and so on.

And what's worse-- You don't even get the satisfaction of a death scene.
Some prick just subdues you and types "cripple broguy leg"
And now you're pretty much worthless, because your stat choices indicate a certain style of play, and the way you've begun to approach your skill caps indicates that as well.
So you retire.
No real roleplay goes into it. It's an option on the log-in menu, and your character is as good as dead but, hey, at least they're...not? I mean, you can bring them back with 2rpp but they're still absolutely useless at what they do, the entire character concept, mechanically speaking, is shot.

This really could only detract from the game, as far as I can see.


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Tyrant
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Benevolent Despot

Post Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 11:17 am      Reply with quote

Do we have code still that handles fractures and internal damage? If so I suggest a modification of that to work kind of like this purposal. A subdued or uncon enemy can have break (person) (location) to smash up their shit mafia style. And just have it work off the existing code. Intentional rather than random extreme damage.

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Yoink
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 11:53 am      Reply with quote

Yeah, from what I've heard, fractures etc can mess you up for a long time without a lot of medical care IG, right?
As much as I like OP's idea in some ways, such a thing would really need to have a lot of RP involved, first, and it could easily be abused.

Maybe you could actually lop off/mangle someone's hand, foot, eye or whatever, each giving appropriate decreases to stats/skills, but then that could lead to them approaching the richer folk with an aim to getting cybernetics?
Didn't we discuss this a while back- the prospect of shady cybernetic deals taking place IG?

...Of course, I doubt anyone would be good enough at the relevant skills yet, but y'know. Razz


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Throttle
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 1:27 pm      Reply with quote

Forced crippling is something no RPI has ever made a serious attempt at implementing. The reason is that very many players rightfully play their personal interpretation of their characters, and while most of them are (hopefully) willing to accept the consequences of their character's actions, having their character permanently changed in a very significant way tends to make them unenjoyable to play. If someone plays the game specifically for the combat and has spent five months establishing a combat-oriented character, cutting off his character's arms will almost never make him enjoy the character more. It'll almost always make him lose all desire to play the character.

It'll lead to much the same problem that plagued enslaved characters on Armageddon: a 100% retirement/suicide rate; and, since some players don't retire or suicide their characters out of principle, some would simply quit over it. I also suspect it would happen much more often because aggressive players will think it more excusable to cripple a character every week than to PK one every two weeks, and I've no doubt that a few players would even derive personal satisfaction from ruining a lot of people's characters.

Early on in Atonement's beta there was a rash of people getting beaten unconscious in the Doghouse, dragged somewhere else, stripped of every single item they wore and left like that, because the guilty players knew that this makes one's character pretty much completely unplayable. There was a time on another RPI where you could whip someone and make them permanently lose some of their hit points total, and the feature had to be removed because the ability to effectively destroy people's characters without having to show up on the list of recent playerkills meant some players did this way, way too often.

Like it or not, the RPI scene has a subset of players who play exclusively to grief others and know exactly how to toe the line in order to be able to always say "hey, I'm not even PKing anybody" when confronted. I would be hesitant to give them an even more compelling way to ruin other people's characters. Everyone is welcome to allow their own characters to become crippled if they want it, but being forced to play a cripple you didn't want to play is not going to make the game better in any conceivable way. There's a reason people almost never create crippled characters, and when they do, they realize within two weeks how absolutely shitty it is to play such a character.


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Matt
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Builder

Post Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 2:40 pm      Reply with quote

Cyborgs.

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Tiamat
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 2:56 pm      Reply with quote

I'd have to agree with all the reasons Throttle posted above. Furthermore, the RPI code already penalizes you for being recently knocked unconscious. These penalties actually can and do stack, which makes you easier to kill if you decide to play willy nilly after being knocked to near death. If you want to act crippled, that's your prerogative. Besides, if you wanted to chop a PC's hand off, that's a pretty significant event that'll get passed up to admins (they do see and hear most of everything that goes on, and if they don't hear about it they can fetch logs). Any admins looking out for the game can add penalties/change descs to reflect that event. Leaving that power into player hands only works if the game was an invite-only or a small group of players.

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