I'd have to say the main focus of SL these days is the political game. It's alot of fun and it gets pretty intense. I dig it!
Mostly I think you just have to have a system where people are rewarded in some way, but only in competition with one another. For us it's a House Ranking System determined by the Emperor.

Another game that does this VERY well, imo, is Armageddon. The harsh environment only adds to the backstabbing and conniving that goes on there. Very cool.

In my experience, it is not a difficult fact to program different political structures, unless of course you want them to be able to do nifty things, like recruit a group of people for a draft, or other tidbits.

The difficulty comes in fostering that kind of community. Politics are inherent, in Non Anarchical societies. (Which some MUD's are). But you will see the older, wiser, more powerful players tend to have more say and pull in the direction of the player base. A type of oligarchy.

Maybe someone who has fostered an alternative political system in their game could give us some pointers?

A poltical system would be a great thing to have in MUDs. Yet, if the Queen of Andor was a character who only logs on once a week, and the King of Cairhien demands something or else there will be a war, Andor is screwed (Please excuse me adictivness to WoT). It will depend on the amount of players on daily, and the people who would want to do it.

I would love the idea for RP, but it's pretty much impossible on my MUD.

What id the Queen of Andor had a panel of military advisors, each with a certain set of permissions to make decisions for the kingdom. Advisors number 1 and 2 could move armies about, change the defenses of the city, declare war, and attack other armies.

Advisors 3 and 4 could do eveything but declare war.

Maybe she trusts advisor 5 with the ability to do everything but change about the city's defenses... maybe advisors 6 and 7 8 and 9 can do everything, but only of there are two of them on at the same time and in agreement about the proposed action... and so on.

This concept can be used in countless situations where the game would otherwise grind to a standstill waiting for one specific player to log in... now you're waiting for 1 of 5, or 6, or 15 people to log in, which is much more doable.

Also keep in mind that in a game with a good and epic scale, entire armies cannot be mobilized and moves across kingdoms to lay siege to some unsuspecting city over the course of a rl hour or so. It's gotta take a few days irl. That way, nations and city-states and what-have-you's have time to anticipate and plan for battles and stuff. There's a lot more strategy to it than "Well, I've got my defenses set up; let's hope my castle is still standing when I log in tomorrow." It's also more realistic.

As for politics outside of war, there are 2 real keys.

1. Have a viable economy. Make money worth something, and having lots of money a rare but very cool and useful thing to have. People will form alliances, backstab, and fight over money -- just like in real life. If the only real commodity in your game is monsters to kill and the equipment they're carrying, you're in trouble.

2. Create a detailed political system, with meaningful positions. I've seen far to many games where all the girls would give their right arm to marry the prince, but the princess has no real power.. just the title. Sure, RP'ers will fight to get the position of princess, but they will fight all the more if the position actually carries powers and abilities to make decisions that concretely affect the game world.

RP arises from conflict. In the real world, conflict arises around religion, money, love, and survival.

In a mud, a lot conflict is thinly-veiled "I want to be the biggest and most powerful badass with the coolest sword."

Introduce religion, a working economy... take away the assumption that the players will always have enough food to eat or a safe place to spend the night.

You really need a lot of players to pull off good politics, and I don't think we've gotten to that point. We do have the other main requirement: separate groups, each with their own drives and desires.

It's also an arena where OOC stuff seems to start festering, perhaps because that's one way (although an unfair one) to get an advantage over another group.

Well, I'm new to these forums, but this is an issue that I've pondered on some, so I'll jump in this puddle.

I've speculated a bit on the economic issues of various MUDs, and with a mix of research and thinking have found a few possible solutions towards creating a balanced system (and maybe one really good one), but the basic questions involved come down to one thing:

Are you really willing to go through the effort of making a balanced economic system?

To really make a truely balanced economy (or as close to it as is realistically possible), it will require a lot of work, and might require a fundamental rewrite of your existing system. It might require more time or resources than you really have.

Most MUDs that I've seen rely on black box technology for thier economy. Mobs (black box #1) drop various forms of loot provide input to the economy without any real justification. Shopkeepers (black box #2) keep cranking out an infinite number of the same items at the same prices to pull a trickle of coin out of the economy. But players take more from the mobs than they spend on the shops. It's an unbalanced system from day one.

I think the developers have to be able to get beyond the traditional concepts of MUD design and ask themselves the hard questions. Where does this come from? Why does this do that? Is there a better way to do it? Can we do that in our game?

You might not be willing to go all the way in pursuit of a working economy, but I believe the process of thinking it through will reveal other possible partial solutions that could be implemented without completely gutting your code.

Hmm... I may be babbling. Any thoughts?

Hello-

Being extremely politcally oriented myself, I would love to see more player-run politics inside MUDs. However, as pointed out already, it does require a large, dedicated playerbase to run a good political system. For instance, if you are running a school as a MUD, and one of the teachers could not sign on for every scheduled class time, knowone would be able to graduate/metriculate (if your elsewhere) until the teacher was on enough times to give them a good enough lesson. This would slow the entire school down and make people bored of it.

I also believe that if you are to have a political system, it has to be ENTIRELY player-run. This way, Players never get bored because they shape the politics of the game, and they get to change the politics if they feel the need too. An entire player-run political system DOES take a good, dedicated playerbase.

On top of all of this, people caught up in the political dregs of things often get bored because they do not get enough "action". Personally, I am fine to stay in the political aspect of things, but some people like to move around.

Overall, I would LOVE to see an entirely player-based political MUD come out. If it were to happen, I would definently join. I have also had lots of ideas about such a MUD.

-My two cents,

Letum

You know, this last post really got me to thinking....

How often does Congress Convene? for nine months. Is attendance required? No. This leads me to think that policy makers do not always need to be present. They can meet at different times, in smoky rooms, in car garages and other things.

It's the paper pushers, and 'system' that keeps things going. It these people who process complaints, charges, and awards. Make all of these mobiles. Leave the policy making to players, and as long as the system is set up so that the 'system' can handle the new policies, the players don't need to log all the time.