Re: Mechanisms to combat multiple-entry by a player

From: bcd@pvv.ntnu.no (Bent C Dalager)

Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 12:43:12 +0000

In article <3EE5782B.1E29282D@spam.me>, Stephen Baillie  <dont@spam.me> wrote:
>> 2) Make it pointless. Unfortunately, this boils down to having to
>> give startups nothing of any value whatsoever within the game, and
>> this proves difficult to do.
>
>To Boldly Go (http://www.pbm.com/tbg/tbg.html) does a nice job of this -
>starting positions receive a full complement of equipment, which (unlike
>all "real" equipment) cannot be maintained and constantly decays.  More
>established players don't want such tripe, but it allows you to do
>everything you need until you can get some real equipment.  Thus you're
>not at a complete loss initially, but have to work for any real gains.

The actual equipment is probably among the easier aspects to
handle. More difficult, I find, are the inherent capabilities given to
new positions.

Taking "Quest" as an example (assuming everyone is familiar with it
and ignoring the fact that running multiple parties there is perfectly
acceptable), even if you give startups no equipment whatsoever, you
are still left with at least two extremely important "gifts":

1) A number of characters capable of kicking ass.

2) A party. Regardless of how many characters are in it, each party
has the innate ability to be located in its own location. The more
parties you have, the more locations you can inhabit. Also, each party
is allowed a limited number of orders per turn. More parties = more
orders.

Now, point 2) above is worth considering. This is a hidden asset with
innate capabilities that most games tend to give any new position, but
that is often unobtainable in quantity for existing positions. This
therefore turns into a huge, fat carrot for the power gamers and you
get multiplayers.

Cheers
	Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

References

Mechanisms to combat multiple-entry by a player
wavey@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk
Sun, 08 Jun 2003 10:01:26 +0000
Re: Mechanisms to combat multiple-entry by a player
bcd@pvv.ntnu.no (Bent C Dalager)
Sun, 08 Jun 2003 14:37:03 +0000
Re: Mechanisms to combat multiple-entry by a player
Stephen Baillie <dont@spam.me>
Tue, 10 Jun 2003 06:18:34 +0000

Referenced By

Mechanisms to combat multiple-entry by a player
wavey@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk
Sun, 08 Jun 2003 10:01:26 +0000
Re: Mechanisms to combat multiple-entry by a player
bcd@pvv.ntnu.no (Bent C Dalager)
Sun, 08 Jun 2003 14:37:03 +0000
Re: Mechanisms to combat multiple-entry by a player
Stephen Baillie <dont@spam.me>
Tue, 10 Jun 2003 06:18:34 +0000